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UR PRESIDENTS AND THEIR OFFICES 




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OUR PRESIDENTS 
AND THEIR OFFICE 



INCLUDING PARALLEL LIVES OF 
THE PRESIDENTS OF THE PEOPLE 
OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF 
SEVERAL CONTEMPORARIES, AND 
A HISTORY OF THE PRESIDENCY 



BY 

WILLIAM ESTABROOK CHANCELLOR 

Author of "The United States: A History of Progress," 
and of other books 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHAMP CLARK 

Speaker of the House of Representatives in Congress 

"Tell the truth." — Grover Cleveland, Campaign Order, 188A 




NEW YORK 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1912 



3^5 



Copyright, 1912, by 
The Neale Publishing Company 






To THE Twelve Living but Unknown Presidential-elect of Destiny: 

May you all be as brave as Washington, as good as either Adams meant 

to be, as wise as Madison; and if so be the fate that befell 

Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley befall you also, may 

all America weep with an equal sorrow! 



INTRODUCTION 

THE PRESIDENT AS LEADER 

By champ CLARK, 
Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

AMERICAN HISTORY FOR AMERICANS 

No man ever excelled Lord Bacon in expressing a great 
thought in a few words: he says, "History makes men wise." 
In addition to making men wise, history contributes largely to 
their pleasure; and the study of history, like the practice of 
charity, should begin at home. To us, George Washington is 
of more importance than all the Old World Captains together 
from Nimrod to Kitchener. Thomas Jefferson more nearly 
concerns us than all transatlantic statesmen from Lycurgus to 
Lloyd-George. Whether we voted for him or not, William 
Howard Taft, our President, is of more interest to us than all 
the crowned heads of earth. 

IMPORTANCE OF THE PRESIDENCY 

Sensible men will welcome "Our Presidents and Their 
Office" as a timely and valuable contribution to our literature. 
The Presidency of this Republic is the greatest political office 
known among men. Whether merit or geographical location, 
whether luck or accident has elevated them to that exalted 
office — and in the elections of most of them there was some- 
thing of each and all — they and their careers are well worth 
study. Taken all in all, they will bear comparison favorably 
with any line of monarchs or statesmen that ever lived in any 

9 



lo INTRODUCTION 

age or country. They were all men of high character in this 
supreme station, of broad patriotism and of unimpeachable 
integrity. At least four of them wrote their names on the 
scanty lists of immortals. With graphic pen, the author of 
the present work analyzes their careers, gives the sources of 
their power and points out the reasons why they were chosen 
in preference to all their great contemporaries. With con- 
summate skill, he uses their lives to illustrate the blessings of 
our free institutions. Perhaps the most notable of all the 
lessons displayed is that the greater Presidents stood for 
definite issues as leaders before their fellow countrymen. They 
were advocates of measures and policies. They were wise and 
courageous and loyal to principle as they understood the situa- 
tions before them. 

OURS A GOVERNMENT BY MAJORITIES 

As a rule, our Presidents have been the leaders of men, 
and of the political thought of their respective parties; cind 
ours is a government by parties, or perhaps, to speak more 
precisely, a government by majorities. As it has been, so it 
is now, and so let us hope, it always will be. Some of us may 
not wish it so to be, but the principle is fixed in the very nature 
of Americanism. 

Consequently, an adequate discussion of the Presidents is 
really a history of the government of our country under the 
Constitution. The more that history is studied by bur people, 
the better for us all. An intelligent democracy is the finest 
of all societies of men. 

A STUDY OF INTENSE INTEREST 

The study of the office itself and of its powers, apart from 
the personalities of the men who have held it, is one of intense 



INTRODUCTION ii 

interest. This subject is treated by the author, who is a dis- 
tinguished historian and educator, in a manner that both 
delights and instructs the reader — not only delights and in- 
structs but also surprises him by demonstrating that the power 
attaching to the Presidency is greater than that of any consti- 
tutional monarch, and that it has been one of the forces that 
have lifted the United States of North America to preeminence 
and a prosperity unequalled to-day among the other nations of 
mankind. Our Fathers of the Constitution did no part of 
their work better than in the organization of this new and 
splendid office of Chief Executive representing, ruling and 

obeying all the people. 

Champ Clark. 

Washington, D. C, December i8, igii. 
Speaker's Room. 



PREFACE 

The purposes of this work are several. Of these, the first 
is to recount, from the same point of view, as fully as the 
space permits, the life of each President. The second is to 
measure all the Presidents by uniform standards. The third 
is to show their relations to the main forces of American 
history. And the fourth is to show how the Presidency itself 
has developed since the days of the Constitution-makers. 

If our Federal Republic were in the historical meaning of 
the term a "nation," our Senators would be elected at large by 
a vote throughout the country irrespective of States, and our 
Presidents likewise. Only the Supreme Court is national ; and 
to the people it is the least satisfactory of our governmental 
devices. We may be integrating into a typical nation; but if 
so, the process is counter both to the spirit and letter of the 
Constitution and to the desires of all true democrats. 

Wonder attaches to the careers of certain Presidents who 
seem to us "immortals of this earth." Their lives must be 
presented upon a different scale from those of the apparently 
lesser men of our highest office. Of this wonder, excellence 
of moral virtue is not the cause; nor is achievement. It does 
not ask the same facts of all great men. Perhaps it springs 
from a sense that here is a revelation of the essential nature 
of humanity; from each several man, a different revelation. 

The historian seeks to tell the truth. With truth, we may 
win justice. But we are still too near even the first President 
to be able to say, "This is the truth, the whole truth and noth- 
ing but the truth." Far less, may one say it of the Presidents 
of recent years. 

It is becoming, therefore, to be chary of moral judgments 
respecting personal motives. A genial democracy warns us 
to respect the office always, and the person in the office within 
the limits of ascertained fact and of our own self-respect. 

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, who has 

13 



14 PREFACE 

kindly written the Introduction, is in no sense responsible for 
the details of the text of this work. He has in fact studied 
neither manuscript nor proof. He belongs, however, securely 
in the noble line of genuine democrats ; and as such is in hearty 
accord with the main political propositions of this work. 

If the opinions herein expressed differ widely from those of 
some readers who may have lived in one locality and have seen 
but little of public life, I can but cite for my views a quarter 
of a century of familiarity with politics, in and by which I have 
lived, and nearly half a century of migration, in which I have 
spent more than one year in each of nine States and have 
visited in every part of the Union. Politics, public office, travel 
and many changes of residence have made me a convinced 
decentralizationist and Jeffersonian democrat. And history 
seems to confirm this faith. 

Presidents, Speakers, Chief Justices have worked and now 
work for whom ? For us as well as themselves ; for their own 
posterity and for ours. They are among our chief nation- 
builders. W. E. C. 

Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C. 



CONTENTS 

PART ONE 

History of the Presidency 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Road to the White House 19 

II. The Essential Issues of Our Politics 63 

III. The Principles and History of Our Political Parties . 91 



PART TWO 

Presidential Powers 

I. Origin of the Presidentlal Character 127 

II. Constitutional and Customary Powers 149 

III. The Cabinet 173 

IV. The President as Mayor 199 

V. The White House, Official Home of the Presidents , . 204 

PART THREE 

Lives of the Presidents 

I. George Washington 215 

II. John Adams 240 

III. Thomas Jefferson 252 

IV. James Madison 271 

V. James Monroe 289 

VI. John QtriNCY Adams 304 

VII. Andrew Jackson ; 320 

VIII. Martin Van Buren 346 

IX. William Henry Harrison 368 

X. John Tyler 372 

15 



i6 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XI. James Knox Polk 379 

XII. Zachary Taylor 390 

XIII. Millard Fillmore 399 

XIV. Franklin Pierce 405 

XV. James Buchanan 412 

XVI. Abraham Lincoln 429 

XVII. The President of the Confederate States of North 

America — Jefferson Davis 473 

XVIII. Andrew Johnson 483 

XIX. (Hiram) Ulysses [Simpson] Grant 492 

XX. Rutherford Birchard Hayes (With an Account of His 

Rival, Samuel J. Tilden) ., 512 

XXI. James Abram Garfield . 521 

XXII. Chester Alan Arthur 527 

XXIII. (Stephen) Grover Cleveland 532 

XXIV. Benjamin Harrison 543 

XXV. WiLLLVM McKlNLEY 549 

XXVI. Theodore Roosevelt 562 

XXVII. William Howard Taft 578 

Bibliography 591 

Index 595 



PART ONE 
HISTORY OF THE PRESIDENCY 



"Go put your creed into your deed, 
Nor speak with double tongue." 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Ode, 1857. 



Our Presidents and Their Office 



CHAPTER I 
The Road to the White House 

Never the same road — Presidency and Chief Justiceship compared — an 
immortal list — the martyr-Presidents — the Presidency a web of fate — ■ 
the influence of FrankHn — and of others — the Jeffersonian dynasty — 
a revenge of fate — personal qualities of successful candidates — poli- 
tical opinions as to centralization and parochialism — previous official 
careers of Presidents — physical qualities of the Presidents — their 
temperaments and dispositions — there is no Presidential temperament — 
family status — wives of the Presidents — the meaning of a happy mar- 
riage — moral characters — the White House families — manners — ^births 
and deaths — occupations of parents — ages of Presidents in the office — 
their voting residences — youthful wealth or poverty — nearly all Presi- 
dents migratory in youth — later wealth — advantages of older children 
— small families and helpful parents — an early start in life — war 
records — scholarship of the Presidents — names of Presidents all agree- 
able — all Protestants — nearly all lawyers — party leaders few — plain 
men — mistakes that we have not made — ^two-term Presidents — future 
of the Presidency — popular requirements for the Presidency — ^the 
end of the road. 

Never the Same Road. — In life's journey, twenty-six men 
since 1788 have found a stage at the home of the President 
of the people of the United States. Twelve or fifteen men 
now living in childhood, youth or manhood are upon the road 
to the White House. It has never been the same road for any 
two men. One man found it upon his life's journey at two 
different stages, — Grover Cleveland. Five men have died in 
the Presidency; and two soon after leaving it. The death- 
rate is one in four. The average President has for contem- 
poraries two living former Presidents. The average man of 

19 



20 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

fifty-six years has an expectation of life of fourteen years. 
The average President lives but seven years after that age. 
Eight of the four-year tenants of the White House have been 
invited to take a second lease immediately after the first ; but 
nearly all the others vi^ent out sorrowfully, some even with 
bitterness at heart. Polk was ill and did not care to remain, 
and Hayes was rich and likewise did not care. Of the twenty- 
two elected Presidents, only nine survivors have failed of re- 
election, and of these the ninth is still alive, — Roosevelt. 

Presidency and Chief Justiceship Compared. — The 
Presidency of the people of the United States is commonly 
considered the most influential office of our government. Per- 
haps, the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme Court is the most 
powerful office of all ; but the Presidency has the public eye 
and the public ear; and under our Constitution as now inter- 
preted, is much more attentive and responsive to present public 
opinion. 

Perhaps, if by custom Presidents were allowed to serve any 
number of terms, the office would rise to a dictatorship. And 
perhaps if by custom Chief Justices were expected to resign 
from the bench at the end of their second quadrennium, the 
office would sink to the European notion of the judiciary. 
Certainly such a changing court could not make itself a per- 
petual Constitutional Convention without referendum to the 
people. A President based his opinion of the primacy of his 
office upon the fact that he could appoint the Chief Justice, of 
course, "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate," 
while he himself is the whole people's choice. 

A Justice rested his case upon the statement that the Presi- 
dency is a kaleidoscope; every man in it is an amateur at the 
business, which it takes at least eight years simply to learn. 

The pages of this history show that we do not yet know. 
Sovereignty here is not determined. We are a system of 
checks and balances, every officer watching every one else; 
and soon or late public opinion rules. When we don't like the 
kind of Justice and justice that we have, we wait for death, 
and then put another kind of man in, whence issues another 
kind of law. Similarly, we change our executive. And the 
impasse of checks and balances gives way to progress. We 
may yet find a better system; but so far this is the best in 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 21 

human history. Sovereignty rests nowhere and everywhere 
in this nation. Such is American democracy. 

Our Immortal List. — We have had eight Chief Justices 
of the United States.^ Who knows their names? MilHons 
can repeat the names of the twenty-six Presidents. The list 
is not less world-famous than that of the Roman Caesars, or 
that of British Sovereigns. Fortunately for the reputation of 
them all, it includes the names of several men whom any age 
and any land would be glad indeed to hold in high honor, — 
men of light and of leading, men of self-sacrifice and of 
ultimate heroism, men of notable talent and at least one man 
of positive genius of unique quality. 

The Martyr-Presidents. — It is a list that has been glori- 
fied by the pitiful example of three martyrs, in each case men 
of singular amiability of character, — Abraham Lincoln, 
James Abram Garfield, and William McKinley. 

These men were martyrs to public office, in each case mod- 
estly occupied. Their pitiful deaths made the Presidency of 
this Republic, in the deepest sense, sacred to all good citizens ; 
which, however, should not absolve us from trying to make 
the office safer to occupy.^ 

The Presidency a Web of Fate. — The list of Presidents 
looks like a list, a line, a thread, until we come to know the 
history of the Presidency; and then we see that in truth we 
have iDefore us cloth with warp, woof, and nap, a veritable, 
mysterious, fascinating web of Fate. In a sense, once given 
George Washington ; and every other man was inevitable. In 
truth, again, we could not escape George Washington. In 
this sense, the whole of American history is a predetermined 
deliverance, that we may watch but may not control. We 
have seen a revolution due to universal manhood suffrage; 
we might also foresee another revolution due to equal suffrage. 
By 1850, the number of voters had multiplied and their quality 
had greatly declined, as Chancellor Kent so uselessly predicted 
in New York State. Irresistibly, woman suffrage is sweeping 
over the land. Some day, female Jacksons and William Henry 
Harrisons may occupy the White House. The age of majority 
may yet be reduced to eighteen years. 

^See Appendix III. *See pp. (!^, 525, 531. 



22 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

They Made Work for One Another. — Too little atten- 
tion has been given to the decisive importance of individuals 
in the Presidency. Polk provoked a war with Mexico, Tyler 
had prevented a third war with England, McKinley annexed 
the Philippines, Cleveland refused to annex even little Hawaii. 
Jackson and Grant were spoilsmen ; Cleveland and his success- 
ors civil service reformers. A hundred pages might be filled 
with these contrasts specifically set forth. 

Four Great Men Prior to 1789. — But history does not 
deal with imaginary alternative courses save to lighten a per- 
haps monotonous narrative. It is clearly within the field of 
history to inquire into the causes whereby men rose to power. 
To a clear understanding of American history, it is necessary 
to see that between the call to arms in 1775 and the establish- 
ment of the new Constitution, four men were virtually the 
Presidency of the United States. They were not individually 
Presidents, but in combination they operated somewhat as 
a President operates. These four men were Samuel 
Adams, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, and Benjamin Frank- 
lin. With them but one other needs to be mentioned, the 
field commander George Washington. 

The Influence of Franklin. — By far the ablest of these 
men was Benjamin Franklin. He had printing establishments 
in ten cities, including the West Indies. He ran the postoffice, 
was colonial agent abroad, wrote inspiring articles, hated war, 
and financed Braddock's expedition. Here is the true tap 
root of our national history. It lies in the genius of Benja- 
min Franklin, to whom the word "genius" applies more aptly 
and fully than to any other American. 

No Braddock and Braddock's defeat, probably no George 
Washington, popular hero; no war-hero, no general revolu- 
tionary war. But for Franklin, Braddock would have given 
up the attack upon Fort Duquesne. It was not only his 
ingenuity that put the expedition on its feet ; it was his money 
also. And Franklin had made all that money. Unlike Wash- 
ington, he had not inherited or married a dollar. Not only 
intellectually but also morally, he was the superior of Wash- 
ington. He had no love of money, no secrecy of his sins, and 
no vanity. 

To specify another instance: But for Franklin, we could 
never have won Yorktown. No Yorktown surrender, no ter- 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 23 

mination of that war. It came at the "nick of time," a finer 
phrase than "psychological moment"; and Rockingham let the 
people go. Franklin did not fight; but though very old, he 
crossed the dangerous ocean many times and risked capture 
often. 

The Opportunity of Patrick Henry. — With the war- 
hero made at Braddock's defeat, Patrick Henry could declaim 
with terrible passion and splendid eloquence, "Let us fight!" 
He liked Washington even less than Franklin did ; but he knew 
that the big, hot-headed, proud man was glad to fight. 

The Skill of Sam Adams. — Up North, an abler man 
than Henry was doing the same work of arousing the people, 
— old Samuel Adams, master of Boston town-meeting. He 
got a Continental Congress together, maneuvered it into a 
fighting mood, persuaded it to adopt the fourteen thousand 
Yankees around Boston as a Continental Army, and to appoint 
Washington as its head. Washington could never have done 
this himself. He had no political adroitness and no gift of 
speech. He could do three or four things, — coin the labor and 
sweat of slaves into money; write letters and keep accounts; 
fight ; and look the hero in clothes that advertised him. 

The Handling of Hancock. — With John Adams's help, 
Sam Adams made Washington commander-in-chief. No 
army command for Washington, small chance of the Presi- 
dency of a new nation. The two Adamses had to go at this 
thing h5q)ocritically and deceitfully. Their patron and money- 
bag, John Hancock, wished to be commander-in-chief him- 
self. They worked him off into President of the Congress, 
Avhich he did not like. Hancock and Washington had the 
money and the pride and the two big offices; Henry and 
Samuel Adams aroused the people. 

Give Place to Washington. — Given Washington, his 
health, courage, and other military qualities; given his final 
success; and he comes into the Presidency of the Federal Con- 
vention in 1787 with apparent inevitableness. Behind the 
appearance is the intelligence of Benjamin Franklin of Phila- 
delphia, who might have been President instead. Washing- 
ton was master of the Alexandria lodge of Masons. There- 
fore, they made the Federal Convention as secret as the grave. 
Of course, the President of this Convention must be the first 
President of the people of the United States. Orators and 



24 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

philosophers and statesmen and rich merchants and even town- 
meeting politicians must stand aside. Washington had enough 
of the desiderata. They paid off all his debts as general, so 
that he might live securely and ostentatiously. Wealth, hero- 
worship at home, fame abroad, pride, and at last self-control 
made him President. Upon this fact, all American national 
history turns. 

The Washington pyramid bases upon four corners, — Samuel 
Adams, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, — 
upon agreements and discords and rivalries, 

John Adams had helped to make Washington President as 
well as Commander-in-chief. He supported the President as 
Senator-at-large, such being his conception of the Vice-Presi- 
dency. In return, Washington made Adams his successor. 

The Jeffersonian Dynasty. — But there is another thread 
in this fate. Another Virginian who loved neither Henry nor 
Washington had played his part in destiny, — Thomas Jeffer- 
son. He felt that the Declaration written by him made him 
the greatest of all Americans. In the terrible war, he had lost 
his wife and all but two of his children, his cash, even his 
reputation at home, for he was insolvent. Still, Washington 
sent him abroad and made him famous. This Thomas Jef- 
ferson envied Washington's wealth, his fame, his magnificent 
person, his powers. He had seen the increase of his neighbor, 
and was bitter of heart. He despised Hamilton, Washing- 
ton's right-hand man. Out of all this grew the Republican 
party, the anti-Federalists, the haters of the more or less 
mythical "monocrats." Jefferson was suave, adroit, plausible. 
He throve as the opposition, and landed in the Presidency by 
one vote. In making Adams his heir, Washington had made 
a mistake. He had made the government unpopular. But 
every student of American history clearly understands that if 
Washington had not died in 1799, Jefferson would not have 
become President in 1801, Moreover, though Jefferson wrote 
the Declaration, Sam and John Adams put it through Con- 
gress. In more ways than one, Jefferson was himself the 
product of Washington and the two Adams. And he had 
caught something of the benignant manner of Benjamin 
Franklin and something of the fiery rhetoric of Patrick 
Henry, 

So far, the web of this cloth is complete. No Adams, no 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 25 

General and President Washington. No President Washing- 
ton, no President John Adams. No President Washington, 
no Jefferson minister to France and leader of the opposition 
from hatred of pro-British Hamilton, agent in Philadelphia 
of New York bankers and speculators. No President Adams, 
tactless and strong, no room for a tactful President Jefferson. 
And with Washington alive, no room for Jefferson in the 
Presidency, even so ! Washington died at a too early age, — 
we might call it "providential" for Jefferson. 

The web of the cloth of Presidential fate grows now longer 
and wider. The certainty of it grows clearer. Washington, 
the Adamses, Franklin forced the Constitutional Convention. 
And this Convention brought into play the unique powers of 
a comparatively young man, — James Madison. Unlike most 
of his compatriots, Madison had learning and learned friends. 
Among them was Pelatiah Webster of Philadelphia who had 
written a deal about what the Federal Government should be. 
Result : — Madison put through a good Constitution. He was 
the peaceful, quiet star of that recent association over which 
Washington presided. Madison owed his Presidency to just 
three facts, — first, that Washington was dead, for the General 
had no interest in these frail scholarly men ; second, his promi- 
nence in the Federal Convention ; third, a personal and political 
friendship with Thomas Jefferson, who made him his Secre- 
tary of State and his heir, when it was supposed that the Vice- 
President would always be the heir. If Thomas Jefferson had 
formed an affection for Aaron Burr, how different history 
would have been ! 

Monroe had been a lieutenant under Washington and did 
not like him. This was a bond of sympathy between Jeffer- 
son, Madison and himself. Monroe was ardent and affection- 
ate. This pleased Jefferson. He had defeated Madison for 
Congress, and then circumstances had brought them together. 
The mission to France had turned him against Washington 
and John Adams. Madison made Monroe Secretary of State, 
with the cordial approbation of Jefferson, who saw with delight 
a pro-Gallican foreign minister in office. Certainly but for 
Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, Monroe would never 
have been Secretary of State. In the "War of 1812," he was 
Secretary of War also, and alone of Americans in prominent 
office in Washington, acquitted himself creditably. To make 



26 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

him President was not merely easy: it was inevitable. The 
Virginia dynasty was still the traditional notion. Virginia 
was very near the city of Washington. 

J. Q. Adams. — Monroe took John Ouincy Adams to be 
Secretary of State. Why? Years and years ago, George 
Washington had said that the son of John Adams would make 
a shining mark in the upper world of diplomacy and of gov- 
ernment. Such praise by Washington in his older years was 
rare. And then Adams had left the Federalists to become a 
Democrat upon conviction and in the face of his constituency. 
This literally "made" J. O. Adams. A real diplomat, one of 
the best we have ever had, the Secretaryship of State belonged 
to him. The glory of the Monroe administration was the 
Monroe Doctrine, — Adams wrote it out. He must be Presi- 
dent. Old John Adams, his father, said so ; Thomas Jefferson 
said so. Madison and Monroe agreed. And T. Q. Adams was 
made President. 

The Radical Comes In. — All this is comparatively easy. 
It is harder to trace the causes set in operation by these six 
Presidents that made Andrew Jackson the revolutionist Presi- 
dent. And yet these men made him such as truly as they made 
their other successors. If there had been no "War of 1812," 
there would have been no battle of New Orleans, and probably 
if there had been no battle of New Orleans, there would have 
been no call for Andrew Jackson to be President. But for 
Madison and Monroe, there would have been no "War" and 
no battle, at least of the half -guerrilla kind actually fought. 

Jackson was mightily aggrieved against the government at 
Washington. Personally, he didn't like its manners and style. 
He had been Senator twice and had resigned twice. But he 
had been a soldier also, and the government had not treated 
him well. He had been even fined a thousand dollars for con- 
tempt of court. He felt outraged by his treatment. But the 
battle made him famous, and J. O. Adams gave a glorious ball 
in his honor, the finest yet held in Washington. This made 
Jackson respectable Presidential timber. Jackson was a re- 
lentless hunter. He had stolen a wife from a husband in 
whose house he was lodging; he now undertook to steal the 
Presidency from the man who had once barely defeated him 
and who had then bestowed upon him signal honor. 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 27 

With country-wide hunting, he took his prey. Jackson 
made "Httle Van" his Secretary of State and minister to Eng- 
land. His enemies forced Van Buren's return. Then Jackson 
made him President. 

Harrison and Tyler. — After Van Buren came Harrison. 
Former Presidents had commissioned him Major-General and 
Governor of Indiana and Minister to Columbia, whence Jack- 
son had removed him. Washington was a war-hero and there- 
fore became President. Jackson was a war-hero and there- 
fore became President. Ergo, "Old Tip" Harrison must be 
President. The General who had won the battle of Tippe- 
canoe River must have his reward. The making of this cloth 
of fate is moving forward. 

As to Tyler, he was never elected President and does not 
concern this argument. 

Polk and His Punishment. — Next came Polk, political 
manager for Jackson in Tennessee and Speaker of the House, 
working for the Jackson- Van Buren machine. "The Her- 
mitage" spoke, and the voice of the dying "Old Hero" made 
Polk President. 

Polk made Taylor President. He appointed him Major- 
General of the army of invasion. When he won Buena Vista 
and was forced by Polk to resign, the people remembered the 
political "outrages" of the past and yelled for "Old Rough 
and Ready." The outrages were the bad treatment by the 
government of Jackson; the refusal of the Senate to confirm 
Van Buren as Minister to England; and the recall of W. H. 
Harrison from Colombia. Washington, Jackson, Harrison, 
war-heroes, were made President; therefore, Taylor shall be 
President, and he was. Taylor was the revenge of fate upon 
Polk for the Mexican War. 

Fillmore was never elected President. 

Two Tactful Men. — Polk had picked up Pierce as a 
private in the Mexican War and had made him Brigadier- 
General. He had been hurt at Buena Vista. Surely, but 
for Polk and Taylor, both dead, Pierce would never have 
been thought of for President. It has been said that Nathaniel 
Hawthorne made Pierce President. Very possibly. Jackson 
made Hawthorne charge d'affaires In London; and this gave 
him political experience and close acquaintance with Martin 
Van Buren. Hence, the biography had weight. 



28 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

If Polk had not made the Mexican War, Pierce would never 
have lived in the White House, unless as a minor em- 
ploye. 

Then came Buchanan, who had been Secretary of State 
under Polk and who by President's appointment, had held so 
many diplomatic posts that when the supply of war-heroes 
gave out, he was almost an inevitable President, 

It has been no part of the purpose of this review to show 
that inferior men have been manipulated into the Presidency ; 
but that whatever kind they have been, they have gone in from 
definite personal causes, relations and conditions. The his- 
tory of the Presidency is not a succession of steps, but a series 
of links in a chain, — a hidden fate. 

How, then, came Lincoln? 

The Lincoln Revolution. — The people were tired of 
bureaucrats in 1828 and elected Jackson; they were tired of 
habitual ofifice-holding politicians and elected Lincoln. Both 
Jackson and Lincoln were symptoms and, in a measure, evi- 
dences of reaction. Lincoln himself was in politics, deep in 
politics. Jackson, another revolutionist President, had worked 
for the Presidency in order to get full, sweet, and perfect -per- 
sonal revenge upon his enemies. 

But in what way were his predecessors responsible for Lin- 
coln? First, by his "Spot Resolutions" in Congress against 
the Mexican War, Lincoln came to be a national figure. Polk 
gave him this opportunity, 

Buchanan helped Lincoln against Douglas. Lincoln got the 
majority vote, though he lost the Senatorship. With that 
majority vote, Illinois came into consideration as a field from 
which to choose a Presidential candidate. Buchanan hoped 
to keep Douglas out of the Presidency; and he won. This 
gave Lincoln room. Jackson made Taney Chief Justice. 
Taney gave the Dred Scott decision. The decision gave Lin- 
coln his argument 

Johnson was never elected President. 

Grant Accounted For. — Against all his military and poli- 
tical advisers, Lincoln kept Grant in the army and steadily 
promoted him. Vicksburg and Appomattox made Grant 
President. 

No Lincoln, no Grant as General of the Army in the days 
of himself and of Johnson. The latter put Grant into the 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 29 

brightest of the political limelight by taking him on political 
tours, and otherwise. 

More Generals. — Lincoln had promoted Hayes in the 
Army; and in Ohio politics and again upon the floors of Con- 
gress, Hayes had been a Grant supporter. If there had been 
no War between the States, Hayes would never have been 
heard of even in Ohio politics. The election of Lincoln occa- 
sioned the Civil War. His debate with Douglas was a potent 
factor in causing that war. No Civil War, no Lincoln or 
Grant and, therefore, no Hayes, for his army record was 
half the political power of R. B. Hayes. The rest was his 
money and good nature. He was honored in Ohio; and the 
Republicans needed Ohio. 

The case of Garfield is much like that of Hayes, with the 
added factor that Hayes was grateful to Garfield for his 
Electoral Commission work. Partisans are not always un- 
grateful. Besides, by attacking Lincoln, Garfield had early 
made himself notorious. 

Arthur is not in the record. But Hayes, by putting him 
out of the Collectorship of the Port of New York, made him 
Vice-President. 

The Cleveland Reaction. — Cleveland was made by 
Arthur and Garfield and Hayes and Grant. The people had 
to take him instead of Folger for Governor of New York 
when Arthur ran him;^ and that Cleveland landslide put him 
all the way across into the Presidency. 

Benjamin Harrison as United States Senator fought Cleve- 
land. This fact and his grandfather William Henry Harrison 
and his war record made him President. 

Now comes McKinley. Who discovered and made him? 
Cleveland by fighting the protective tariff. And Hayes of 
Ohio assisted in bringing McKinley forward as the champion 
of the protected interests. 

That McKinley made Roosevelt, and Roosevelt Taft are 
commonplaces. 

Let him who would be President hasten to be public friend 
or public enemy of the President that now is in office ! 

Personal Qualities of Successful Candidates. — What 
is the first personal requirement for the high office? "Per- 
sonal magnetism" is not the correct answer. The "magnetic" 

^See p. 534, infra. 



30 



HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 



James G. Blaine, a delightful man to know, went down before 
the brusque Cleveland. The yet more popular Henry Clay 
was defeated each several time that he ran. William Jen- 
nings Bryan is certainly a more eloquent speaker than either 
of the two men who have defeated him, — McKinley and Taft. 

Political Opinions as to Centralization or Localiza- 
tion OF Governmental Functions. — The political opinions 
of candidates have not had much to do with their success. 
There has always been one main issue, — for centralization or 
against. Shall we be a nation or a federation? In the nega- 
tive, this has meant that the centralizationists were nationalists, 
the decentralizationists were State's rights men. Some Presi- 
dents really had no political opinions; they did not under- 
stand, or they did not care. It has been the irony of fate that 
some decentralizationists were forced into many centraliza- 
tionist acts, — conspicuously Lincoln, who at heart was a 
localist, a parochial, though, of course, not a divisionist. 

Washington did not comprehend the issue, but in action 
was a centralizationist. The lists are as follows, viz. : 



. entralisationists. Um 


iecided am 


d wavering. 


Localists. 


Washington 


Jackson 


Jefiferson 


J. Adams 


J,Q- 


Adams 


Madison 


W. H. Harrison 


Lincoln. 


Monroe 


Polk 






Van Buren 


Taylor 






Tyler 


Grant 






Fillmore 


Hayes 






Pierce 


Garfield 






Buchanan 


Arthur 






Johnson 


B. Harrison 






Cleveland 


McKinley 








Roosevelt 








Taft 









Opinions on Questions in Issue. — It is, of course, not 
true that the opinions of a Presidential candidate upon poli- 
tical issues do not influence, even at times determine, his 
success. But American democracy is experimenting upon 
many matters, — tariff, currency, banking, corporations, trans- 
portation, — and tries now one policy, now its opposite. A 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 31 

candidate is up to find out which the people intend to do. He 
cannot foreknow. If he could, he would either espouse the 
winning side or withdraw from this campaign, perhaps to try 
another after longer public agitation. In this sense, it makes 
no difference what are the political principles or what is the 
party of the candidate. In an opposite sense, he is put up 
because he believes or is believed to believe in certain policies. 

So far as the Presidency is concerned, this is the sole signifi- 
cance of the party platform, — that it formulates the belief of 
the party as to what is the belief and will be the action of the 
man if elected. 

In consequence, of this series of situations, known as Presi- 
dential elections, the views of a man respecting government 
and politics are not vital to his success. One side is as likely 
to win as another. We zigzag toward some unknown destiny. 
Our politicians proper pick principles and policies, as well as 
men, to win, — to win power through government. 

And yet in order to keep before the people, win or lose, 
from decade to decade, let the man who intends first to be a 
power in the land be the advocate of a few principles, — the 
fewer the better; if possible, one until it wins. The spokesman 
for a principle or for principles may become a statesman. In 
truth, the main difference between great men and lesser is 
that a few ideas control the former while the lesser pick-and- 
choose, vacillate, and hesitate among many ideas. But for 
their surrender to worth-while ideas, most great men would 
appear as mediocre as most men are. Perhaps knowing a 
great idea when it comes by is greatness. 

The Vice-Presidential Candidates. — Not only have the 
American people failed to choose Vice-Presidential candidates 
with a view to a chance of one in four of succession by death, 
natural or violent ; but we have also failed adequately to con- 
sider whether or not the running-mate will help the ticket. 
There is not the slightest doubt that often the Vice-Presi- 
dential candidates have hurt the Presidential. Doing away 
with the Electoral College choice has put us into the predica- 
ment of electing pairs of officers, not a single officer. To 
illustrate from recent history, the Democratic party has nomi- 
nated W. J. Bryan three times, — ^his associates were Arthur 
Sewall of Maine, of whom no one had ever heard, Adlai E. 
Stevenson of Illinois, who as Vice-President had been regarded 



32 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

as inconsequential in the days of Cleveland, and John W. 
Kern of Indiana, suspected of being the pleasant tool of a 
boss. There was not a strong candidate among them. In a 
hundred and twenty-three years of our history, we have not 
had twenty wisely chosen Vice-Presidential candidates, — not 
twenty who if seated by the decease of the President or by 
later election would have been average Presidents, not twenty 
whom the voters were glad to honor. Usually, they have had 
a Hobson's choice, as in 1904 a H. G. Davis against a C. W. 
Fairbanks, or in 1908 a J. W. Kern against a J. S. Sherman, 
all then national nonentities. 

Here is a chance for the wiser party to decline taking a 
deadweight (or perniciously live weight) candidate and to run 
a ticket without handicap probably against a badly handi- 
capped opposition. 

Early Services of the Presidents. — The Presidents 
usually come from wide experiences, though not often of 
national prominence. These experiences may be classified as 
follows, viz. : 

United States Senator 12 

International Diplomat 8 

Cabinet Secretary 8 

State Governor 13 

Army General 8 

Congressman 20 

Judge 4 

Large personal business affairs 5 

Average number of important prior experi- 
ences 3 

No man ever reached the Presidency without at least one of 
these kinds of position in his career. Most Presidents had 
several, as their biographies show. 

Those with the greatest variety of official experience were : 
J. Adams, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, W. H. Harrison, 
and B. Harrison. 

Those with the least variety were : Washington, Madison, 
Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Gar- 
field, Arthur, and Cleveland. 

But when we add experience in business and in general life 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 33 

and consider depth and intensity of experience, how the lists 
change! Our tables do not show the relative values of these 
experiences. Let no man doubt that in true life-experiences 
prior to the Presidency Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson 
rank at or near the head of the list. 

Of all these offices, the State Governorship appears the most 
valuable as a preparation. Next to this, service as Represen- 
tative in Congress. 

Were official experience in nature and in amount alone to be 
considered, probably these men would have proven failures : 
Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Lincoln, 
Grant, Johnson, Garfield, and Arthur. 

And even Buchanan would have proven a great success. 

That it greatly helps to have held some office in Washington 
is clear upon the face of the record; the voters get the habit 
of thinking of the man as belonging in Washington, That 
twenty of the twenty-six Presidents should have served as 
Congressmen tells it own story. Life there creates in some 
the desire to live in the White House. Excepting Cleveland 
only, every President had some official business in Washington 
for years before his election. 

Physical Qualities of the Presidents, — Like Saul, some 
of these men stood head and shoulders above all the people. 
A dozen of them were either six feet or more in stature or 
above two hundred and twenty-five pounds in weight, or both. 
Several, however, were of frail and slight physique. The larg- 
est of them all is the President of the present quadrennium, 
six feet and more in height and three hundred pounds and 
more in weight. Next to him comes Grover Cleveland. But 
there has been no tendency upward in height and weight, for 
among the very small men came Benjamin Harrison, sand- 
wiched in between the two terms of Cleveland, At the begin- 
ning of the list stands the man who probably in sheer muscle 
was the strongest of all, the superb Washington, six feet two 
and a half inches in his stocking- feet, weighing over two hun- 
dred pounds. He could ride one horse after another all day 
long, day after day. It is gravely recorded that he threw a 
Spanish silver dollar across the tidewaters of the wide Rappa- 
hannock. In the prints of the day, he was pictured as a mighty 
athlete, stripped for boxing and weight-throwing. His run- 
ning jump was twenty-two feet. In his youth, he could dance 



34 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

all night. As the years passed, he became valiant at the dinner- 
table, often eating and drinking for three or four hours with 
his guests. 

Both the Adamses were good swimmers, but of other ath- 
letic prowess little is reported. They were small, stout men. 
For one who was thin and over six feet tall, Jefferson was a 
good horseman. Madison was a small, slight man, never 
strong. Monroe was scarcely his superior. Jackson always 
had poor health but marvelous endurance. He sat his saddle 
well. He was of middle height but slender. His bones were 
heavy. The bullet of Dickinson in a duel splintered against 
his ribs. Van Buren was a short, stout man, disinclined to 
exercise. W. H. Harrison was vigorous, six feet, and an out- 
door athlete. Tyler was a quiet gentleman of good height 
and strength, but though a planter, not interested in sports or 
any other physical exercise. Polk was like Madison and 
Monroe. 

Taylor was a large, strong man, not so tall as Harrison but 
heavier, and an out-door athlete. By disposition, Fillmore was 
another Van Buren, though above six feet tall, but as indif- 
ferent to physical exercise. Pierce, the lawyer, was like Tyler. 
Buchanan was large and tall but an indoors man of sedentary 
habits. Lincoln was six feet four inches in height, but weighed 
only one hundred and seventy-five pounds. He had strength 
to work and to fight in his youth; as President, however, he 
took but little exercise and was in poor health. Johnson was 
of good size and weight but cared nothing for exercise. Grant, 
who was small and heavy, was a good horseman but seldom 
rode for pleasure. Hayes was a large, cheerful, healthy man 
who enjoyed life but cared nothing for physical exertion. 
Garfield was more active. Arthur was like Van Buren, Fill- 
more, and Buchanan, though not so tall as the last. Cleveland 
went fishing, which is good for the lungs because of the out- 
door air ; he was tall and very heavy. Harrison was small and 
stout but in no sense an athlete or sportsman. McKinley was 
of medium height and weight, and sedentary. Roosevelt 
weighed above two hundred and twenty-five, rode horseback, 
played tennis, went hunting, — an inharmonious combination 
of Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, — an all-around 
athlete, first-class at nothing but ambitious in everything in 
the way of bodily exercise, essentially vigorous. Taft plays 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 35 

golf because he likes the game and works in a gymnasium 
mornings to keep down his weight. 

The review suggests that size, weight, strength and activity 
have had little or nothing to do with securing the Presidency 
or with succeeding in it. 

Temperaments and Dispositions of the Presidents. — 
To mention "temperament" is at once to bring before the mind 
the men who most exhibited what is popularly meant by that 
term, — a natural character uncorrected by experience. We 
think at once of Jackson, the explosive and terrible when pro- 
voked, otherwise gentle and agreeable ; of Roosevelt, explosive 
and voluble and indefatigable ; of Washington, silent, dignified 
and, it is said, "stately" ; of Grant, the imperturbable. 

When a man reaches the Presidency, usually his natural 
temperament is so overlaid with habits, so suffused with aspi- 
rations, so calmed by trials, as not always to be easily discern- 
able. Half the Presidents were already touched by senescence, 
which soon destroys the motor-temperaments and indicates 
falsely the reflectiveness of other temperaments. And yet 
nearly all Presidents were naturally of the motor-tempera- 
ments, — muscular, sinewy or nervous. Such temperaments 
are by no means essential to success as President, but they are 
almost essential to success in seeking the Presidency. There- 
fore, the war-heroes win. Such men as the Adamses, Madi- 
son, Cleveland, and Taft did not seek the office in the fashion 
of the warriors. 

For industrial and commercial success, the motor-tempera- 
ments are essential. Merchants, manufacturers, farmers, me- 
chanics, miners, seafarers admire the man who "goes," the 
man who "does," because he is like themselves. Yet states- 
manship is not going and doing. 

The Presidency is by no means solely an executive function. 
Strong driving power is not the temperamental necessity. In 
selecting Justices, Secretaries, diplomats, and the subordinates 
of importance, judgment is all-essential. The doer is seldom 
a good observer and critic. The Presidency is also a legislative 
function; and legislation requires study, contemplation, rea- 
soning. 

Men of every variety of temperamerit have been President, 
— the anaemic sedentary Madison, the sanguine sedentary 



S& HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Adamses, the corpulent sedentary Cleveland, the muscular- 
motor Taylor, the nervous-motor Jackson, the sinewy-motor 
Lincoln, Whatever be a man's native temperament, until cor- 
rected, he looks upon the qualities of others as faults or even 
vices. No educated or socially experienced man permits him- 
self to manifest crudely his natural qualities. 

Temperament may be otherwise stated, — as voluntary, re- 
flex or critical in action. The first is childish, the second 
machine-like, the third, considerate but sometimes dilatory, 
Tyler illustrates the first, being inconsistent yet active; Polk 
the second, being a driver but inconsiderate ; and Taft the last, 
perfectly. The voluntary are victims of "bright ideas" and 
whims; the second, of habits of thinking and doing; the last, 
of over-caution and of dispassionateness to inaction, even in- 
difference. By its quality, every temperament tends to destroy 
the individual. But no man has reached the Presidency with 
an uncorrected temperament. What he has had has been a 
disposition founded upon and rounded out from his native 
temperament. For this reason, the common talk in Washing- 
ton of "a Presidential temperament" is beside the mark. There 
is no such thing. If there were, it would be a muscular-motor 
temperament calculated to win the nomination and election; 
and thereafter to wreck the office and the nation. The de- 
sideratum is any temperament duly disciplined by experience 
and chastened by affliction into something else. 

Family Status. — Our standard of sex-morals for men has 
slowly changed since 1789. We know but little accurately of 
the earlier Presidents respecting their relations with women. 
But it is well to pause before condemning any man and to recall 
that Moses, who wrote the Ten Commandments, including 
the fifth, had at one time two regular wives and that he author- 
ized husbands to divorce their wives with bills of writing — 
no trial in court being necessary. If we can give clean bills 
of health to nearly all Presidents upon this score, we may 
properly felicitate the nation; the record is unique in history. 
No hereditary dynasty ever had a series of monarchs with 
clean scores ; or ever will have. 

Wives of the Presidents. — We know too little of the 
mothers and fathers, of the grandmothers and grandfathers 
of the Presidents. We know also too Httle of their wives.- 
And jet what we do know is important. For one item, — the 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE zl 

Harrisons, Garfield and Cleveland were near kin. Of course, 
the Adamses were father and son. 

George Washington married one of the wealthiest women 
in America. Without her cash, he could never have financed 
himself as the unpaid commander of a rebellion that at times 
degenerated into guerrilla warfare. Even as a war-hero, with- 
out her funds, he might not have reached the Presidency in an 
age when wealth counted relatively far more than it does 
to-day. The common taunt of his enemies that "the Widow 
Custis saved him from being a common planter" had its bitter- 
ness in its relative truth. Still, Washington had the judgment 
to select her and the personal charm to win her ; and deserves 
credit accordingly. Martha Dandridge Custis was an essential 
factor in his success. 

Abigail Smith took an ordinary parsimonious Massachu- 
setts grammar school teacher turned lawyer, getting fees with 
equal greed from Tory and Patriot alike, an irascible, con- 
ceited, industrious self-seeker, and converted him to public 
uses. She made him President, and gave to him a son who 
also became President under similarly competent training. She 
was a Quincy; and a proud race may well be proud of this 
their greatest scion. 

On the other hand, if the first wife of Patrick Henry had 
not died, and if the second wife had not been so domestic that 
she would not let him out of her sight, he might easily have 
risen to so great a political figure as to have been President 
instead of Washington, for he was far more popular in the 
South. One tour of Henry into the North in 1787 might have 
changed all later American political history, for he was always 
the first orator of his times. Their wives, — the dispositions 
and health of four women, — largely determined the destinies 
of three men, — and, therefore, of this nation. 

The whole later situation is similarly well worth considera- 
tion. The death of the wife of Thomas Jefferson in the middle 
of his career created widespread sympathy for him, and his 
continuing widowerhood gave him time for political activities. 
Madison's wife made his home socially popular. Monroe's 
wife belonged to a fine Northern family. Perhaps the career 
of J. Q. Adams was less affected bv his wife than that of any 
earlier President, but the social prestige of her Maryland 
ramily helped even a President's son. 



38 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

The case of Andrew Jackson is of absorbing interest. He 
offended not only the proprieties but also decency and sound 
morals by capturing a wife's vagrant fancy. This reckless 
exploit fascinated all the Western country. Over it, Jackson 
fought a duel. Throughout his lifetime, it made him a cause 
of endless fireside, country-store and pulpit discussion. With- 
out a single really obvious qualification for the Presidency, 
Jackson owed his election to this marriage, to the battle of 
New Orleans, and to his own measureless egotism. And then 
to the world's astonishment, he made a fairly good President. 

Van Buren was a widower with grown sons and much of 
a social lion among ladies; but it does not appear that his 
marriage affected his career. This is equally true of the 
patriarchal William Henry Harrison. But the complete change 
in the political skill of Tyler, following the death of his first 
wife, and his prompt second marriage suggest the question as 
to whether or not the wife of his youth was not the real poli- 
tical director of his earlier successes. 

As for Polk, it was the money of Sarah Childress that gave 
him the means to work freely in politics ; and it was her social 
grace that made his home a power in Washington. Taylor 
always said that his wife was the cause of all his achievements. 
She went upon all his military campaigns with him and was 
the financier. The attractive wife of Fillmore was well con- 
nected. She came of that Leland family which was said to 
have more blood-relatives than any other in America. An 
influence of this kind certainly could not have delayed her 
husband's progress. The wife of Pierce was a charming and 
brilliant lady. 

The case of Buchanan, the bachelor, stands out unique. His 
betrothed died, and he remained faithful to her memory. Does 
this explain in part at least his absorption in politics and at 
the same time the social favor always accorded to him? In 
every aspect of private morals, no better man was ever 
President. 

Mary Todd married Abraham Lincoln, — ^persuaded him to 
marry herself, to put it accurately, — in order to make him 
President. She said so herself, said that he was the smartest 
man she knew and certain to be the most popular. She al- 
ways talked to him and about him on the assumption that he 
would be President. That kind of home atmosphere is con- 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 39 

tagious. She herself was a clever woman, though not an 
agreeable one. 

Grant had a good wife. Without her, he would probably 
have died a drunkard before 1861. Bessie McCardle taught 
Johnson nearly all that he ever really knew and was the good 
genius of his life. Hayes was well married to a lady of prop- 
erty. Arthur was a widower, a club man, a man-about-town, 
a man's man. Obviously, Cleveland's relations with women 
had nothing to recommend him to decent men for the first 
term in the Presidency. He arrived with apparently the worst 
handicap an able man can have. Benjamin Harrison was well 
married. That the influence upon McKinley of his beautiful 
semi-invalid wife was wholly for good because she herself 
was highly intelligent and thoroughly good, everyone knows 
or should know. She did not actively promote his progress, 
but she made him personally gracious and therefore popular; 
and having lost her children, she had time to give to him her 
woman's view of his problems. 

Each of the wives of Theodore Roosevelt was wealthy, 
well-born and a social favorite. The wife of William Howard 
Taft has always been a political-minded, ambitious woman, 
like himself, with enormously rich relatives. 

The Limited Meaning of a Happy Marriage. — Over 
against this record should be set that of the wives of other 
men who sought but did not attain the Presidency. Superla- 
tive merit in a wife is no essential for reaching that height. 
A good wife, a rich wife, a stolen wife, a well-born wife, an 
able wife, the memory of such a wife, the loss of one be- 
trothed, — not one feature is essential. But it helps a man 
greatly that in his career with reference to women there should 
be something distinctive ; either good that makes good women 
and good men think well of him or bad that makes him so 
prominent as to cause his good or great other qualities to be 
clearly seen. For political purposes, in a world of good and 
evil, it is quite possible that the record of Grover Cleveland 
actually forwarded his interests, not because men, even bad 
men, approved the record, but because against such blackness 
the white qualities of the man shone brilliantly. How great 
a name might such a man have had — if ! if, early in his man- 
hood, he had seen and recognized such a helpmeet as the wife 
who at last came Into his life! 



40 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Of not one man can we say that whatever his experience 
with women, he would certainly have been President; yet of 
nestrly every one, we must report that his good or evil fortune 
in respect to women was nearly or quite decisive in shaping 
his career. And it is altogether well that this is so, for the 
President is over all the people, — the women and the children 
as well as the men, over the homes as well as the factories, 
stores, mines, and farms. 

Moral Characters.— The shameful thing is not that men 
in some respects not clean are called to the Presidency, but 
that once there, by a conspiracy of silence regarding their 
sins, they are held up hypocritically as ideals, even as idols, 
for a nation's unreserved worship. Final history is not so 
written. Truth has a way of coming to its own. Even "charity 
rejoices in the truth." 

One who conceals the truth soon comes not to care for it; 
and one who does not care for the truth soon loses interest 
even in his beliefs. And one who is not earnest in his beliefs 
must lose not only his intelligence but also his character. 
Truth-seeking and truth-speaking are the price of self-respect. 

The White House Families. — Almost every President 
has had children. Candid history has not diligently inquired 
into the lives of all the Presidents; but if in any measure in 
the absence of positive information, rumors and traditions 
are to be heeded, only Polk and Buchanan were really childless 
when first elected to the Presidency. The bachelor does not 
get near to men's hearts. Cleveland's frank acknowledgment, 
"Tell the truth," gained rather than lost votes. 

Most of the Presidents had happy family households. J. 
Adams and his son had wives and children and grandchildren. 
Jefferson had two grown daughters. Madison had wife and 
stepchildren, a beautiful household. Monroe had a wife and 
two daughters. Jackson was alone, all alone; he had stolen 
his affinity from another man's hearthstone. This marriage 
had been happy, though childless; but Mrs. Jackson had died 
at the time of her husband's election, — of a broken heart, he 
said, because of the publication of the circumstances of their 
union. Van Buren had four stalwart sons. W. H. Harrison 
had wife, children, grandchildren, a large family. Tyler had 
wife and grown children. In his administration, the White 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 41 

House saw a funeral of a matron and the wedding of a youth- 
ful bride. Public opinion was shocked. Yet both his mar- 
riages were happy and fruitful. Polk had a beautiful wife but 
no offspring. Taylor had a charming household, — wife, 
children, son-in-law, grandchildren. Fillmore was well mar- 
ried and had children. Pierce had lost three sons. Buchanan 
was alone in the world. Lincoln had wife and three boys, of 
whom one died in the White House, to his almost desperate 
grief, for he was a devoted father. Johnson had wife, children 
and grandchildren. Grant had a fine family, Hayes had 
wife, children and grandchildren. Benjamin Harrison's wife 
died in the White House; they had grown children. Cleve- 
land in his second tenn had a young wife and small children. 
Arthur, a widower, had a son and daughter. McKinley 
and his wife had lost their two children; they were true life- 
long lovers. Roosevelt had six children, one by his first wife. 
He has always been a good husband and father. Taft has a 
wife and three children, and a pleasant home-life. 

Minor Morals, — As to the minor virtues of non-use or of 
strict moderation in using alcohol and tobacco, the record of 
the Presidents is good, Jefferson, Pierce, Johnson, Grant, 
Arthur, and Cleveland erred as to alcohol ; Jackson, Grant and 
McKinley were excessive users of tobacco. But no other 
Presidents were incapacitated seriously even upon occasions 
from either of these minor vices. On aesthetic grounds, we 
may delight in the good examples of such recent Presidents 
as Lincoln, Hayes, Roosevelt, and Taft; but both Grant and 
Cleveland were, — to use a mild term, — "careless" in respect 
to alcoholic stimulants and to tobacco. One was a weak, per- 
haps even a bad. President, the other strong and good. 

In money matters, the unhappy examples of Jefferson and 
of Monroe, in early days, have been warnings to later states- 
men. Notably careful and thrifty were Van Buren, Buch- 
anan, Lincoln, Hayes, and Cleveland. 

Painstaking honesty in money affairs has characterized 
nearly every successful candidate for the Presidency. 

Selfishness and Manners. — ^Those who would setup such 
propositions as that "the people will not elect a selfish man 
President" or "an unselfish man has no chance, for he is sure 
to be crowded out" are hard put to it to make their argument. 
The contrasts are startling. We have had at least a half 



42 



HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 



dozen intensely selfish Presidents in the simplest meaning of 
that term, — men who asked first, "Where do I come in on 
that?" And we have had, by way of startling contrast, Jef- 
ferson, Monroe, W. H. Harrison, Lincoln, and McKinley. 

Moralists do well and frankly to admit that neither does 
egoism prevent large public service nor does altruism prepare 
for it. Perhaps the man who looks well to his own going may 
be a wise guide for all of us. At any rate, Washington, Jack- 
son, Van Buren and Cleveland, though conspicuously selfish 
men in small matters, were useful Presidents. 

There are various kinds of manners, — "fashionable," good, 
kind though rude, and none. Manners are conspicuously mat- 
ters of taste and opinion ; but these four graded lists serve to 
set the distinctions : 



Intended to he 




Kind 




fashionable. 


Good. 


though rude. 


Almost none, 


Washington 


John Adams 


W. H. Harrison 


Johnson 


J. O. Adams 


Jefferson 


Polk 


Grant 


Jackson 


Madison 


Taylor 


Cleveland 


Pierce 


Monroe 


Lincoln.; 




Buchanan 


Tyler 






Garfield 


Fillmore 






Arthur 


Hayes 






Roosevelt 


B. Harrison 






Taft 


McKinley 







Formal manners, however insincere, evidently help toward 
the Presidency. The plain people like to hear "Delighted to 
see you" from a stranger. It is the language of friends. 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 



43 



Months of Birth. 

Jan. Fillmore, McKinley. 

Feb. Washington, W. H. Har- 
rison, Lincoln 

Mar. Madison, Jackson, Tyler, 
Cleveland. 

April Jefferson, Monroe, Buch- 
anan, Grant. 

May 

June 

July J. Q. Adams. 

Aug. B. Harrison. 



Months of Death. 

Tyler, Hayes. 
J. Q. Adams. 

Fillmore, B. Harrison. 



W. H. Harrison. 

Madison, Jackson, Polk, 
Buchanan, Cleveland. 

J. Adams, Jefferson, Mon- 
roe, Van Buren, Taylor, 
Johnson, Grant. 



Sept. Taft. 

Oct. J. Adams, Hayes, Arthur, Pierce. 

Roosevelt. 
Nov. Polk, Pierce, Garfield. Arthur. 
Dec. Van Buren, Johnson. Washington. 

The three Presidents who were assassinated died in April, 
September, and September, respectively. 

Those who believe that the month that sees the advent of a 
person to this life is of considerable importance would do well 
to note this list. February and March are certainly starred 
splendidly. More human beings are born in May than in any 
one other month, and yet this month has seen no President 
arrive. If the stars that are said to preside over births have 
aught to do with character and luck, what shall we say of 
October that brought such diverse men here as Hayes and 
Roosevelt ? 

Evidently, the early months of summer are highly morbific 
for old men. 

Occupation of Parents. — Fourteen Presidents had 
farmers or planters for fathers, — the first six, Jackson, Van 
Buren, Polk, Taylor, Garfield, and B. Harrison. Three had 
lawyers, — ^J. Q. Adams, Tyler, Taft. Two had clergymen, — 
Cleveland, Arthur. Three had merchants, — Buchanan, Hayes, 
and Roosevelt. One had a hunter, — Lincoln ; another had an 
iron manufacturer, McKinley; one had a politician, W. H. 



44 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Harrison; another a sexton and constable, Johnson; one a 
tanner, Grant. 

Four Presidents had at least one parent of foreign birth. 

Ages of the Presidents in Office. — Considerable age 
has not been a requirement for the Presidency. Our youngest 
Chief Magistrate was Theodore Roosevelt, who arrived at 
forty-two years, an age when men are just finding themselves 
in ordinary business life. At inauguration, our oldest Presi- 
dent was sixty-eight, W. H. Harrison. Next to him was 
James Buchanan, sixty-six less seven weeks. 

Upon entering office, the average age of our Presidents has 
been fifty-six years. It is interesting to note that in March 
(inauguration delayed, however, until April), 1789, Wash- 
ington was fifty-seven years old; in March, 1801, Jefferson 
also was fifty-seven; in March, 1829, Jackson became sixty- 
two, while in March, 1861, Lincoln was but fifty-two. It is 
an office attained in what would have seemed to the Fathers 
in the Constitutional Convention "old age." They were fathers 
then, not grandfathers. Their own average age was but 
thirty-seven years. We now call fifty-six "advanced middle 
life." 

The Presidents of the highest administrative efficiency 
have,- in general, been the younger among these men, — Polk 
was forty-nine when his term began in 1845, and Cleveland 
became forty-eight in 1885. The extreme youth, as the Presi- 
dency goes, of Roosevelt has already been remarked. His 
administrative efficiency is too well known to require emphasis. 
But such efficiency, however, has been by no means always 
synonymous with success and usefulness as President. 

The Voting Residences. — The State of their voting resi- 
dence has had a deal to do with the election of candidates to 
the Presidency. In early days, Virginia was "the mother of 
Presidents." She has given to us five, — Washington, Jeffer- 
son, Madison, Monroe, and Tyler. The fathers of several 
other Presidents were Virginians, — indeed, William Henry 
Harrison, though nominated from Ohio, was himself a native 
Virginian ; so was Taylor. To-day, Ohio and New York are 
disputing primacy as the pedestal to the Presidency, — Ohio 
named W. H. Harrison in 1840, Hayes in 1876, Garfield in 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 45 

1880, McKinley in 1896, and Taft in 1908; while New York 
named Van Buren in 1836, Fillmore (as Vice-President) in 
1848, Arthur (as Vice-President) in 1880, Cleveland in 1884, 
and Roosevelt (as Vice-President) in 1900. Tennessee has 
had three Presidents, — Andrew Jackson (a native of South 
Carolina) in 1829, Polk (a North CaroHnian) in 1845, ^^^ 
Andrew Johnson (as Vice-President) in 1865. 

In this present epoch, it is clearly advantageous to be a 
resident either of New York or of its western neighbor, Ohio. 
Along with the center of population, which is now at Bloom- 
ington, Indiana, the nursery of the Presidents is moving west- 
ward. It is a reciprocal relation of cause and effect. Had 
Blaine lived in New York State or in Ohio, he would have 
defeated Cleveland; but in this world, nearly everything off- 
sets, — he might have been unable to get to the front either in 
New York or in Ohio, for he tried both his native State of 
Pennsylvania and Kentucky before trying at twenty- four years 
of age a middle walk of life in Maine. Live near and east 
of the limelighted center of population in order to be known 
in time. 

Youthful Wealth or Poverty. — Assuming that one- 
tenth of the population at each period of our history have been 
well-to-do or wealthy, one-half in moderate circumstances, 
and three-tenths poor, one obsen^es that to preserve the ratios 
three Presidents should have been born of well-to-do parents, 
thirteen of parents in moderate circumstances, and ten of poor 
parents. The facts show that the well-to-do have an enormous 
advantage. To this class belonged the parents of Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, Madison, J. O. Adams, Tyler, Taylor, Pierce, 
Buchanan, Hayes, B. Harrison, Roosevelt and Taft, — twelve 
in all. To the class of those in moderate circumstances be- 
longed the parents of J. Adams, Monroe, Polk, Van Buren, 
W. H. Harrison, Fillmore, Grant, Arthur, Cleveland, and Mc- 
Kinley, — ten in all. To the poor by birth belonged Jackson, 
Lincoln, Johnson, and Garfield, — four in all. And yet these 
facts show that even the very poor, even those who in child- 
hood do not have food enough, are not barred from the Presi- 
dency. The only requirement is to get food enough to keep 
alive. Lincoln never owned what men call "clothes" until past 
his majority; his poverty M^as almost desperate. 

• Nearly All Presidents Migratory in Youth. — Yet 



46 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

more significant are such facts as changes of location and loss 
of parents in the upgrowing of youtK It is a strange, pathetic, 
startling truth that childhood troubles increase the chances of 
success. But few Presidents were allowed to grow up in their 
home-towns. Washington lost his father early and went 
a-roaming. Jackson, Polk, Lincoln, Cleveland and half of 
the others were wanderers in youth. Jackson as a growing 
boy" indeed had neither mother nor father. The father of the 
soon motherless Abraham Lincoln was never an asset to him. 
Perhaps, the social sympathy for an unfortunate stranger boy 
in a town helps bring him into political prominence. Perhaps, 
the early necessity to shift for himself drives him forward. 
At any rate, to be motherless or fatherless or both, a stranger, 
and not too poor, is an advantage in the early stages of the 
road to the White House. And yet we have elected some men 
who were reared happily by their parents in their home-towns : 
not nearly so many, however, as the ratio of average of popu- 
lation requires. It is human nature that generally communities 
in their early political careers back strangers whom they never 
saw in boyhood rather than native sons. We have been a 
migratory people; and we elect transients who are most like 
most of us. 

Later Wealth. — At election, nearly all of our Presidents 
have been poor men. Poverty is, of course, a relative term, 
and they were not poor as compared with unskilled day- 
laborers ; but they were poor as compared with average busi- 
ness men and lawyers. Most of them had been servants of 
the public, which reflects its own poverty in the salaries paid. 

In i860, Lincoln said that he was not worth twenty thousand 
dollars, including his home and office furniture. His friends 
called the estimate twice too high. By 1865, out of the hun- 
dred thousand dollars our fathers paid him "to save the 
Union," he had saved about twenty thousand dollars. 

"Workingmen wanted. Capitalists barred." Such is the 
writing over the gateway to the Presidency. The several rich 
men who nevertheless have passed in were always under suspi- 
cion. In history, as in the Gospel, all things are possible, but 
the real millionaire who desires to enter the White House as 
tena-nt for four years by election would do well to sell all that 
he has and to give the proceeds to the poor, — all, saving out 
not even the nest egg to a fortune, saving only a town house 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 47 

or a modest farm for respectability's saKe and perhaps a bal- 
ance of a few hundred dollars at his bankers'. He must re- 
member that the American people do not ask of a Presidential 
candidate, "Where did you get it?" but "Have you got the 
goods on you or cached?" To have wealth is at once to be 
politically damned for the Presidency. 

This fact recalls the vicious contest of 1876-7, when one- 
millionaire Hayes euchered five-millionaire Tilden out of the 
Presidency that perhaps he had bought legally. 

In 1844, Polk had the larger property but Clay the larger 
income. 

Mark Hanna of Ohio could and did make a President, but 
he could not have made himself President against a poor 
man. 

In nearly every Presidential campaign, the poorer man has 
won, backed by the richer party. In 1848, Taylor was rich, 
but Lew Cass was richer; in 1866, Lincoln was poorer than 
any rival ; the exceptions to the rule have been very few. In 
1896, and in 1900, McKinley, in financial distress, even duress, 
defeated Bryan; Taft who defeated him in 1908 was poorer 
than he. Even wealth won by public favor for voice and pen 
is a political debit. A statesman like a priest should be poor ; 
so the people think in all Christendom. 

At election, the average President has an income from all 
sources of less than five thousand dollars a year. The richest 
of the Presidents were Washington, Hayes, and Roosevelt. 
So great have been the changes in the purchasing power of 
money that no comparison between their reputed financial 
positions is feasible. We don't know the average equated 
value of the dollar that Washington threw across the Rappa- 
hannock and of the dollar-per-word that Roosevelt received 
for that interesting book "African Game Trails." But Wash- 
ington was one of the four richest men of his time in 1775 — 
the others being John Hancock whose bold and beautiful sig- 
nature graces the Declaration of Independence as President 
of the Congress of the Confederation, Thomas Nelson of Vir- 
ginia, and Charles Carroll of Maryland, signers with him. 
Perhaps, Nelson was morally the finest of them all, for he 
spent in the war for the patriot cause every acre and every 
dollar, dying penniless, — like most of us. 

Hayes and Roosevelt were millionaires, — the latter the 



48 



HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 



richer. Taylor had less, — just how acquired we do not yet 
know. Buchanan, still less, perhaps $300,900, saved by a 
bachelor from law fees, not from salary. Monroe had almost 
nothing, Johnson likewise, and Garfield. All the rest had 
something, — save McKinley, who died insolvent. 

Our Rich Presidents, — Hayes had such large private in- 
terests as to require in the White House a separate office for 
their management to which, under the direction of his father, 
one of his grown sons devoted his entire time. The sources 
of this wealth and its investment have never become known. 
Neither Washington nor Roosevelt gave much personal atten- 
tion to the details of their fortunes, though each was a careful 
business man. 

Annual Incomes. — The median President in respect to 
property has not possessed twenty-five thousand dollars or re- 
ceived an annual income of two thousand save as he imme- 
diately earned it. 

Slaveowners, Otherwise Capitalists, and the Self- 
Dependent. — In any society, the man who depends solely 
upon hand-to-mouth, his own daily toil, no matter how skillful, 
seldom becomes a ruler. The status of the Presidents at the 
time of their first elections was as follows, viz. : 



Slaveowners. 


Otherwise 




Virtually 




Capitalists. 


Self-dependents} 


Washington 


Van Buren 




J. Adams 


Jefferson 


Buchanan 




J. 0. Adams 


Madison 


Hayes 


W. 


H Harrison 


Monroe 


Roosevelt 




Fillmore 


Jackson 


^ ^ ^ 




Pierce 


Polk 


Washington 




Lincoln 


Taylor 


Madison 




Grant 


Tyler 


Polk 




Garfield 




Taylor 




Arthur 
Cleveland 
B. Harrison 
McKinley 
Taft 



*Most of these men owned a farm or a city residence and some were 
'worth" a few thousand dollars besides. 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 49 

Advantages of Being Older Children in Family. — 
There are often broached interesting speculations as to which 
child of a mother is the ablest. The Presidency has no posi- 
tive answer; but it seems to indicate the oldest or at least the 
older children. Primogeniture in favor of sons helped a little 
in that older age before the Kentish system of equal heritage 
was established. Primogeniture gave all of the estate of 
Washington's father to him by a succession of three steps.^ 
It helped Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Assuming 
that in our history the average family has had five children, 
the Presidency shows that the chance of the oldest of three 
sons, or the elder of two, is considerably better than that of 
the others. But parental favor has something to do with the 
case. Yet Benjamin Franklin, who was of Presidential grade, 
was the youngest of seventeen children and ran away from 
home in order to find room to grow. The middle and youngest 
children in families are too little influenced by adults to come 
forward vigorously; they are smothered in childishness by 
older children, and escape thereby through life much affliction. 

Abraham Lincoln was the middle of three children of his 
mother, the oldest being a girl, the youngest a boy who died in 
infancy. He was soon motherless, though he had a good step- 
mother. His father chose good wives. 

J. Q. Adams was also the second child and first son._ 

Jackson was the youngest of three doubly orphaned boys. 

Small Families and Helpful Parents. — It is note- 
worthy that distinguished and wealthy parents help any boy 
forward, which is bad for the mediocre boy, for he cannot 
make good. Several Presidents have been helped greatly by 
older brothers, — both Washington and Taft by rich half- 
brothers. 

Presidents seldom come from large families. Perhaps, one 
neglected reason is that "Nil admirari" is too often in the 
mouths of brothers and sisters who "damn" one another "with 
faint praise." And yet it is not true that most Presidents have 
made their way forward alone. 

The case of Garfield is seldom fairly stated; he had his 
mother and the farm to help him until he was on his own feet. 
The "poor canal-boy" was a campaign phrase. Only Jackson, 
Fillmore, Lincoln, Johnson, and Cleveland really came up the 

^See p. 221, infra. 



50 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

long road to the White House alone. Two of these were so 
marred in the making as not to be elected Presidents. Fill- 
more was amiable but characterless; Johnson ugly and of too 
harsh a character. Every other President was helped through 
childhood and youth (and some of the Presidents in early 
manhood) by parents or near relatives or by inherited estates. 
Pierce had a prolonged infancy, being under wise and strong 
paternal guidance until in middle life. J. Q. Adams likewise. 
This is measurably true of both Roosevelt and Taft. But most 
Presidents were not retarded by too long association with 
children. Perhaps, the care of smaller children does not retard 
so much as being cared for by older children. This may in 
part explain the superior progress of the older children. 

No "only child" of parents surviving until his majority ever 
became President, Such persons are indeed but i in 78 of 
the population. Orphanage in desperate poverty yet permitting 
survival is a far better preparation for American politics. 

Similarly, no institutional child has arrived at this greatness 
of manhood. 

An Early Start. — An early start in war or in politics, 
which is an unending war, is helpful. The start is easier for 
the stranger than for the native to get. Though the transient 
has no social standing, and nobody knows him and he knows 
nobody, yet he gets a majority of the ballots at election time. 
There are no ancient jealousies, no family feuds, to bedwarf 
or to sidetrack him. Nor is the stranger as timid as the native ; 
he has seen at least two worlds, that of "home" and this of 
"here-and-now." He is going forward and upward because 
he is on the move. 

War Records. — A requirement of a President is identifica- 
tion with some war. Let the man who would be President go 
before the enemy somewhere and be shot at. The people love 
those who hold their own lives and those of the enemy cheap. 
A soldier is a protector, and a patriot. 

In lieu of the war-hero, we sometimes elect a war-legislator 
or a war-diplomat. 

Washington was an Indian fighter, a colonel against the 
French, and our Revolutionary general. John Adams was an 
agitator at home and a diplomat abroad for war. Jefferson 
wrote the Declaration of Independence, became a war-gov- 
ernor, and suffered greatly from war-depredations, Monroe 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 51 

was a soldier. John Quincy Adams was a diplomat in the 
War of 1 81 2. Jackson was a general and a terrible Indian 
fighter. As State Senator, Van Buren was the star war- 
jingoist in New York prior to the War of 1812. William 
Henry Harrison, Taylor, Pierce, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Ben- 
jamin Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt were all soldiers, 
the first seven being generals, the eighth a major, the last a 
colonel; and all saw service in the field. Madison never 
fought, but was made to permit a war. In early life, Polk 
was not connected with any war, but he made one. Buchanan 
was a diplomat, Cleveland a fighting reformer, Taft a colonial 
administrator. Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, and Arthur were 
Vice-Presidents elevated to the Presidency by death. Lincoln 
went to the Black Hawk War. 

It is safe to say that the man who, being above seventeen 
and under fifty when a real war is on, stays at home will not 
be President; some man who goes to the front will be pre- 
ferred to him. One might suppose that our main concern in 
America is war. Yet in fact since 1775 we have fought but 
one year in ten, — fifteen years of battles in a hundred and 
forty-two years. 

In the period from 1861 to 1865, of 6,000,000 men and 
boys of military size, one in five went into the Union armies. 
Two in five were physically unfit to fight. It is not to be won- 
dered at that, from Lincoln to McKinley, we had six Presi- 
dents who had seen battle. Statistical probability favored 
this. Historically, if not philosophically, considered, war is 
the supreme examination of peoples ; and democracy like aris- 
tocracy makes its warriors into rulers, seldom good ones. 
War-comrades are usually loyal political supporters. They 
vote not Republican, but G. A. R., which has been the chief 
asset of the Republican party and its tariff beneficiaries. 

Scholarship of the Presidents. — Many of the Presi- 
dents were students, even scholars, in a fine sense of those 
two words. Both the Adamses, Jefferson, Madison, Pierce, 
Buchanan, Hayes, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Roosevelt, 
and Taft were all men of learning. Lincoln was a master- 
artist in writing, and Jefferson but slightly his inferior. Wash- 
ington, J. Q, Adams, Cleveland, and Roosevelt all wrote with 
power if not with skill. Several were orators or debaters of 
excellent quality. Among these were J. Q. Adams, Pierce, 



52 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Roosevelt. Several were 
thinkers or casuists beyond other men of their generation, — 
Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln. 

It is a fiction of tradition that several of the Presidents 
were almost illiterate. The fiction attaches to Jackson, to 
Lincoln, and to Johnson. Jackson made blunders in spelling, 
in grammar, and in rhetoric; but none in argumentation and 
in exposition. His errors were of form, not of substance. 
His mind was good, his oral conversation lucid, convincing, 
delightful. In a sense, Lincoln was an illiterate until he was 
twenty- four or five years old; but by the time that he went 
to Congress, he was admirably skilled both in written compo- 
sition and in oral speech, a skill attained by study. Scarcely 
any other Americans ever knew the Bible, Plutarch, Black- 
stone, Shakespeare, Bunyan, grammar, geometry, and Ameri- 
can history as well as he, for he thought parts of them out 
and understood them clearly. Johnson was less illiterate than 
Jackson; with a decent Congress, he would have made an 
average President. 

Few youthful scoundrels have ever become Presidents of 
the United States; and no man once in office ever betrayed 
his trust for personal profit. Still, we have had a variety of 
the somewhat unworthy. It is interesting to see that no man 
who sat in the seat of the scornful ever became President. 
The sneer has barred nomination. We elect only men who 
are in earnest. It might even be set up and defended that our 
Presidents have been inclined to take themselves too seriously. 
Single individuals are seldom so important as our Presidents 
have sometimes seemed to themselves, forgetting that our 
responsibilities are only for what we have caused and can 
change. 

No fool, no ignoramus, no child, no dotard can be elected 
President, wherein election surpasses heredity in making a 
nation's chief ruler. We are in peril enough of error even as 
we are, especially of electing men once useful but become 
senescent like Buchanan, or weakling like Pierce, or mere war- 
heroes, pure specialists, naive in all other matters like Grant, 
or political "availables" and the favorites of some preceding 
President. 

The Names of Our Presidents. — We have yet to elect 
a President with a disagreeable, a fanciful, or a painfully 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 



53 



common name. We elected an Andrew Jackson, not a "John 
Jackson." We do not like long names, — Hayes was handi- 
capped by the longest name in the list. W^e prefer two names 
to three, and the less letters and syllables the better. Cleve- 
land wisely dropped Stephen early in his career. Roosevelt, 
really three syllables, became two in America; the Theodore 
"God-given" and Roosevelt "red field" were attractive. Ulysses 
S. Grant and U. S. Grant fascinated millions. Franklin Pierce 
was a reminder of an American immortal. John Adams was 
powerful ; and, for popular uses, Abraham Lincoln — "Father 
Abraham" — was almost perfect. 
The table of first names is : 



James 5, 
George i, 
Martin i. 


William 
Thomas 
Millard 


3. 


Zachary 
Franklin 
Chester 


I, 

I, 

I, 


(Hiram, 
not used) i, 


Ulysses 
Rutherford 




Theodore 
Andrew 


I, 
2, 


( Stephen, 
not used) i. 


Grover 
John 


3. 


Benjamin 
Abraham 


I, 
I, 



Nearly every President had some sound of "a" in his name. 

Probably the nicknames Jim, Bill, Jack, and Andy helped 
these men. A man named Samuel in the popular vote over- 
whelmed one named Rutherford. And the Confederates chose 
a President surnamed Jefferson. 

It is improbable that a John Smith will ever contest the 
American Presidency with an Algernon Clarence Peterkin. 
As for the four-name persons, the American voter and the 
American party-leader have no time or inclination to bother 
with the alphabet. The Gillespie that split James from Blaine 
made an open wound. 

In Presidential politics, "a good name is rather to be chosen 
than great riches." 

But let not the good name be that of a famous "blue-blood" 
family two generations away from "work." No aristocrat 
true to the manner will ever come to the White House gates 
with the lease in his pocket. Roosevelt did not have the 
manners of his birth. 

All Presidents Protestant. — By Constitutional pro- 
vision, all our Presidents have been native Americans; and 



54 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

by fortune, nearly all have been wholly of descent from the 
British Isles. Yet several, including Jackson, have come from 
parents or grandparents of foreign-birth. Such being the 
case, it is noteworthy that every President has been a Protes- 
tant member or sympathizer. Several were church denomi- 
national leaders. Among them were several sons or grand- 
sons of Christian ministers. History finds no warrant for 
regarding any of them "atheists" or even "infidels," as their 
contemporaries sometimes asserted. They were perhaps free 
thinkers, a little ahead of their times. Certainly, no liberal 
student of religion to-day would call even Thomas Jefferson 
"anti-Christian" : he was in fact an Episcopal vestryman. 

Their affiliations were these, viz. : 

Episcopalian: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, 
W. H. Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, Pierce, Arthur. 

Presbyterian: Jackson, Polk, Buchanan, Lincoln, Cleve- 
land, B. Harrison. 

Methodist- Episcopalian : Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Mc- 
Kinley. 

Trinitarian Congregationalist : J. Adams, J. Q. Adams. 

Unitarian Congregationalist : Fillmore, Taft. 

Reformed Dutch: Van Buren, Roosevelt. 

Disciples : Garfield. 

(The President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, was 
a Baptist.) 

With over two hundred Christian denominations in 
America, this record of nine Episcopalians, six Presbyterians, 
and four Methodists is instructive. The non-church-member, 
the member of a small denomination, even the member of 
certain large denominations, is not in line for the Presidency. 

Nearly All Presidents Lawyers. — Nearly all Presidents 
have at one time or another studied law. To say that we have 
"too many lawyers in government" is as absurd as the early 
colonial notion in Virginia, in New York, and in Massachu- 
setts that lawyers should be barred out, as absurd as to say 
that we have "too many priests and ministers in religion" or 
"too many teachers in education." The law is government; 
and the lawyers are the profession that governs. 

Yet half of the Presidents at election were not practicing 
lawyers, though more of them practiced quietly than their 
biographers have cared to tell. Is it a relic of the notions that 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 55 

only gentlemen of property and leisure should rule and that 
Senators are Earls and Presidents Kings ? 

Being a lawyer is not a sine qua non for the Presidency. 
But most of the good Presidents were good lawyers, and some 
were little else, — among them, Van Buren, Lincoln, Cleveland. 
Yet most of the Presidents engaged in other pursuits and had 
other interests as well as the law, — among them, Jefferson, 
Jackson, Hayes. 

The law helps politically for two reasons, — the people ex- 
pect lawyers to be concerned in government; and the clients 
of successful lawyers are, therefore, numerous and prosperous, 
becoming groups of almost certain political supporters. 

Among the Presidents, only Washington, Jackson, W. H. 
Harrison, Johnson, Grant, and Roosevelt knew little or no 
law ; the second, however, was for a time a judge and the last 
a university law-student. A knowledge of the law would 
have hurt none of these men. 

We have had in fact but two great lawyers in the Presi- 
dency, — Van Buren and Benjamin Harrison, — and but three 
others notably good, — ^J. Q. Adams, Lincoln, and Taft. None 
of the others was above the standard of a fair lawyer in a 
routine practice. 

Dark Horse Candidates. — The first seven Presidents were 
logical candidates, and the people expected them to arrive. 
But many of the others were either "political unknowns" or 
"dark horse candidates." Since J. Q. Adams, only Buchanan, 
Cleveland, McKinley, and Taft were, in any sense, "inevi- 
tables." To list the "unknowns" and the "dark horses" would 
be to draw too fine distinctions. All the others were more 
or less "surprises." Jackson, the war-hero, was a political 
unknown and a vast surprise to the national political managers 
whose calculations he swamped. No prophet ever could have 
predicted the succession three terms ahead. The foremost 
leaders, the famous statesmen and politicians do not arrive. 

Party Leaders Few. — Misconceptions regarding the Presi- 
dency are so numerous that it is not advisable to try to collect 
and to correct them all. One is that the standaid bearer is a 
party leader or at any rate a good party man. Since popular 
elections began, the record is this : 

W. H. Harrison was a moderate party man, a Whig. 

Tyler was a Democrat nominated by Whigs. 



5^^ HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Polk was a strongly partisan Democrat. 

Taylor had never voted, and had no politics. 

Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan were partisan Democrats, 

Lincoln was a partisan Republican. 

Johnson was a Democrat nominated by Republicans. 

Grant was a moderate Democrat nominated by Republicans. 

Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur were partisan Republicans. 

Cleveland was a partisan Democrat. 

B. Harrison, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft were partisan 
Republicans. 

As for being party leaders, only Polk, Buchanan, Lincoln, 
Garfield, Cleveland, McKinley, and Roosevelt were party 
leaders, seven in eighteen. It is almost a disadvantage to be 
a party leader. The records of defeated Presidential candi- 
dates show that party leaders often fare badly. Clay, a party 
leader, was always defeated. So was Cass. Buchanan, a 
party leader, defeated Fremont, a figurehead candidate. The 
contest of i860 was between party leaders. Lincoln, a party 
leader, defeated McClellan, a figurehead. Grant, also a figure- 
head, defeated Seymour, a party leader. Four years later. 
Grant, become a party leader, defeated Greeley, a leader but 
not a party leader. Hayes, scarcely a leader, polled less votes 
than Tilden, decidedly a party leader. Garfield, a dark horse 
but a leader, defeated Tilden, a party leader. The contest 
of 1884 was between great party leaders. In 1888, Cleveland, 
a party leader, defeated Harrison, not yet a real leader. In 
1892, the two leaders met. In 1896, McKinley, a great party 
leader, defeated Bryan, a rising party leader. In 1900, he 
defeated him again. In 1904, Roosevelt, a minor party leader, 
defeated Parker, not a leader. In 1908, Taft, in no sense a 
leader, defeated Bryan, a famous leader then. 

Some of our Presidents, indeed, had seen too much service, 
beginning too early, working too hard, resting too little, ar- 
riving too late; and arriving only (in part at least) to fail. 
Many certainly came to the White House overworn; it was 
almost their characteristic condition, their bodies tired, their 
heads a-swim with plans, and their hearts hot with hope, and 
their souls, it may be, eager to do right and therefore well. 

Plain Men in the Economic Scale of Life. — To most 
Americans, it is comforting to know that small means and a 
considerable family are almost essential to election as Presi- 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 57 

dent. To some, it is even exhilarating to know that at sixty 
years of age, W. H. Harrison, former Governor, Senator, 
Minister to Columbia, and Major-General, was ekeing out a 
living by working a little distillery (not moonshine either) ; 
he lamented that his product made his neighbors drunk, noisy, 
idle and poor, and closed it up, and with it the door of hope 
of ever getting upon his financial feet again. At sixty- four 
years of age, he drew one month's salary as President, dying 
poor indeed but with a legacy of fame for his descendants. 

It is a saying in Washington, "No gentleman ever lives at 
the White House," — meaning gentleman of leisure, who 
knows and practices the ways and manners of good society. 
In fact, the White House has seen men of various ranks of 
society. Few Presidents have been strictly "men of fashion." 
Some of them, however, may be so regarded, — Washington 
and Roosevelt lived in style ; likewise, Arthur and Taft. Other- 
wise, our Presidents have usually lived plainly, very plainly. 
This plainness has perhaps often been intentionally exagger- 
ated for political purposes ; but we need no certificate to under- 
stand that our Presidents have generally been neither spend- 
thrifts nor overly good dressers and too generous diners. The 
thrift of Hayes is famous ; but Cleveland also saved money as 
President. Thrift is a kind of certificate of character. It 
requires foresight to withhold from spending. 

Mistakes We Have Not Made. — ^We have not been an 
ungrateful people. Not half of these men really deserved 
second terms. Of the less-than-one-term Presidents, none de- 
served reelections, — personal bad habits interfered in the case 
of Arthur. Of the one-term Presidents, none except Roose- 
velt deserved consideration for a second term ; personal morals 
interfered in the case of Pierce ; and Roosevelt was given his 
elective term. We have made some bad mistakes in choosing 
Presidents and Vice-Presidents ; and others in reelecting them ; 
but we have avoided others iust as bad. We did not give to 
Grant a third term. 

This world is not Heaven or Paradise; and it is not Hades 
or any other place (or ever will be while men dwell upon it) 
than what it is — an experiment in good and evil — somewhat 
more good than evil. 

The Two-Termers in Groups. — The first four of the two- 
term Presidents were elected by electors chosen by the State 



58 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

legislatures and the first five of the two-termers came in 
before the days of party conventions to nominate Presidents. 
We can set forth these two groups : 

1. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe. 

2. Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland, McKinley. 

Jackson occupies a middle position, for he was elected by 
electors chosen by popular vote, but their choice of himself 
was not controlled by the pledges of a party convention. Since, 
however, Jackson undoubtedly would have been chosen by a 
party convention of the Republican Democrats of his time, he 
may fairly be considered as in the second group. 

Roosevelt will not go down into history as a two-termer. 
His place is unique, our seven-year Vice-President-President. 

Two-termers before 1829: 

A, — Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe. 

One-termers before 1829: 

B. — John Adams, John Quincy Adams. 

Two-termers since 1829: 

C. — Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland, McKinley. 

One-termers since 1829: 

D. — Van Buren, W. H. Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fill- 
more, Pierce, Buchanan, Johnson, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, 
B. Harrison. 

Of these one-term Presidents, three were such by reason of 
death, — W. H. Harrison, Taylor, and Garfield. Four of them 
were less than one-termers in that they were Vice-Presidents 
succeeding to the Presidency upon the death of their chiefs, — 
Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, Arthur. The one-term group, there- 
fore, is properly divided into two subgroups: 

The one-term Vice-President-Presidents: 

E. — Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, Arthur. 

The complete one-termers in the Presidency: 

F. — Van Buren, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan, Hayes, B. Har- 
rison. 

The Future of the Presidency. — Of these, three groups 
are especially interesting because in them we are concerned 
with the future of the American Presidency, viz. : Group C, 
containing the nominated and popularly elected Presidents, 
who have had two elections; Group E, the Vice-Presidents 
who became Presidents but failed of nomination and election, 
and Group F, the Presidents who failed of election, one of 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 59 

whom, however, was nominated a second time. With them 
all may be fairly contrasted Cleveland, who ran three times, 
winning the first and third time, Roosevelt, the Vice-President 
who became President, and Grant, who tried for a third nomina- 
tion, but failed to get it. Is it possible to discern any principles 
that concern any of these groups? 

In 1892, a President and a former President ran as com- 
petitors. Otherwise, Benjamin Harrison probably would have 
been a two-term President. 

Every two-termer was originally put into the Presidency 
by a group of admiring friends. Every one had a large and 
strong personal constituency. Every one was picturesque, — 
for difl^erent reasons but truly so. Every one was a radical, 
and was styled by his enemies an extremist. Every one 
of them had been a fighter of some kind — in arms or in poli- 
tics. 

Incidentally, it is to be noted that nearly every President 
was a member of at least one great secret society. Washing- 
ton was one of the most prominent Freemasons of his day, and 
set the pace. 

Popular Requirements for the Presidency. — In the 
light of history, apart from the Constitutional limitations, it 
is not possible to discern a single absolute requisite for elec- 
tion ; but it is possible to discern many qualities in candidates 
that are likely to promote their election. 

First, to live near the limelighted center of population. 

Second, to possess wife and children. 

Third, to have a public official record, including a war- 
record and army-comrades. 

Fourth, to be a Protestant and preferably a member of one 
of two denominations. Episcopalian or Presbyterian. 

Fifth, to be by descent from the British Isles. 

Sixth, to have an agreeable name, preferably but two. 

Seventh, to be money-honest. 

Eighth, to be publicly known as a warm friend or as a bitter 
enemy of at least one President, 

Ninth, to be an orphan or an older child ; and thereby to get 
an early start in independent living. 

Tenth, to be from forty-five to sixty-eight years of age. 

Eleventh, to be of but limited wealth and income from 
earnings. 



6o HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Twelfth, to have had a migratory youth, preferably within 
the same State. 

Thirteenth, to have some knowledge of the law. 

Fourteenth, to be a country boy by birth and rearing. 

Fifteenth, to belong to one or more national secret societies. 

Sixteenth, to be identified prominently in the public mind 
with some cause or principle or achievement or issue, i. e., to 
wear a halo or at least a badge of distinction. 

Seventeenth, to have a group of enthusiastic friends, either 
"insiders" or with large financial means, or both. 

Eighteenth, to be known as intensely in earnest. 

Nineteenth, to be well known in Washington, and at home 
to be thought of as having Washington political interests. 

In the contest, the poorer man wins; the mere standard- 
bearer often defeats the party-leader ; and the relatively silent 
man overcomes the orator and the writer. These tendencies 
are worth thinking about. There are many possible permuta- 
tions. We have yet to set an oratorical party leader worth a 
million against a purse-poor, reticent mere standard-bearer. 

Our Unstable Equilibrium. — But why do the great 
issues of tariff and of currency count so little? Partly, be- 
cause we are experimenting, and like a pendulum swing from 
one side to the other. Partly, because the poorer man, the 
standard-bearer, is, in literal fact, more compliant with the 
requirements of the men of great property, who have always 
been potent in American politics, than is the brilliant party- 
leader. Partly, because we are still in a condition of unstable 
equilibrium on the main principle itself. Are we a nation or 
a federation? Where is the sovereignty? Compared with 
this principle, slavery, internal improvements, banks, currency, 
tariff, pensions, war-preparation, severally and collectively, are 
small and dependent. 

Wanting a great foreign war to settle the principle, we tried 
a domestic, and found ourselves tending to centralization, and 
now avert our faces from the truth with its historic lesson 
that when "all roads lead to Rome," the peripheral termini 
decline in prosperity and the travellers grow few. 

Who is President deeply concerns us. In 1912, we have 
reached the pass predicted by Alexander Hamilton when for 
a year we set ourselves to thinking almost solely who the next 
President shall be. And yet as a nation we have never seri- 



ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 6i 

ously considered what are the essentials for a President, our 
highest employe, and yet the director of our fate, and in large 
measure the determiner of our lives. The man in the White 
House, for good or ill, controls the destinies of us all. 

The Ride to the White House. — On his fine thorough- 
bred, General George Washington, big, brave and splendid, 
rode along into the hearts of the people. He was literally 
"the man on horseback." Nations integrate upon great indi- 
viduals; such was Washington. Nations split upon great in- 
dividuals, a part going one road, the rest another, or sitting 
down and refusing to travel. Jefferson split the nation, win- 
ning by one electoral vote; and then slowly, steadily nearly 
all the people, all indeed save the Eastern commercial classes 
and the great Southern planters, united around his standard. 

Came another upon horseback, pale, white-haired, keen- 
eyed, soldierly General Andrew Jackson ; nearly all the people 
rallied to his standard. 

So General William Henry Harrison gathered them about 
his political war-eagle ; and likewise General Zachary Taylor's 
war-clan grew as big as the nation. 

There was no other popular movement until General Ulysses 
S. Grant swept down Pennsylvania Avenue, the fifth man on 
horseback. 

Last came Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, galloping. 

These were all personal elections. Principles, policies, party, 
had but little to do with these mob-assemblings in honor of 
the warrior-great. 

Others walked in, — some barely squeaked in. A few of the 
sober pedestrians, however, had great majorities or pluralities 
as this record shows. Occasionally, principles, policies, party 
did count, — for or against. 

Sometimes, the victory has gone contrary to early expecta- 
tion, as when Polk defeated the brilliant Clay, and Taylor 
the yet richer Cass. 

In 1876, two millionaires were pitted against one another; 
in 1880, two war-generals; in 1892, a President and a former 
President. 

There are often hard battles to get within the White House 
gateway. Lincoln came in literally by stealth and under 
guard; Hayes by a protracted legal battle. 

There on Pennsylvania Avenue at the foot of Sixteenth 



62 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Street, Northwest, — above the Potomac, over which the white 
Washington Monument shaft stands sentinel, — is the most 
dramatically important spot in the New World. Even Wall 
Street yields primacy, battling for the Presidency rather than 
the Presidency seeking to win it, for big business is more de- 
pendent upon politics than politics is upon big business. 

The House at the End of the Road. — The Presidency 
is no office for any man to seek. Yet no man in health, 
whether former President or minor citizen, will ever decline 
it, or even a nomination to it by a great party. 

But it is a humanly undesirable office. A painter tried to 
kill Jackson at the Capitol ; three other Presidents were killed. 
Not that death by violence is undesirable, but that the assassi- 
nations have created an atmosphere of suspicion. It is painful 
to be the object even of madmen's hate. 

The Presidency shortens life.^ It may virtually wipe out 
an entire family. When Abraham Lincoln left Springfield in 
1 86 1, he had a wife and three surviving boys. One boy died 
in the White House; he himself was killed; a second boy died 
of the shock and grief. Only one son remained, and he to-day 
has no grandchildren. The whole affair proved a family 
tragedy. 

But for the Presidency, Garfield and Benjamin Harrison 
and McKinley might be alive to-day. The office means earthly 
fame and a long, long memory ; but it may mean condemnation, 
not admiration. 

Every man who knows the American Presidency knows 
that the inducements to it are possible opportunities of public 
service to ofiFset certainties of many disagreeable kinds and 
possibilities of violent death and of public disgrace perhaps 
through fault of others beyond one's control. 

Our Presidency is the most difficult, the most perilous, the 
most honorable, the most laborious, the least rewarded, and 
yet altogether the greatest chieftaincy in the world. 

*See p. 171, infra. 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 63 

CHAPTER II 
The Essential Issues of Our Politics 

^Contemporaneous public opinion — a meddlesome government cannot be 
strong — the pension question — no ecclesiastical capital here — union 
and liberty — national respectability — how the politician wins — patriot- 
ism and individual liberty — the hypocrisy of a patriot — the Whigs and 
the Tories in England — the revolt of the have-nots — the younger men 
— our economic system — capital-and-labor alienated — our social order 
— certain crimes — the second Federalist President — the first democrat 
— the dynasty — the second Adams — "Old Hero" — restricted govern- 
ment — disconcerted speculative business — Polk the expansionist — a new 
rich slaveowner — a dynasty of failures — the meaning of the War 
between the States — the Whig turned Republican — things are seldom 
what they are called — the net gain — impeached for his merits — Con- 
gress overrides the Supreme Court — reconstruction compared with 
secession — Hayes the beneficent — Garfield and Arthur— government 
in itself is not good — a link in the tariff chain — a modest imperialist — 
a hunter — a contented man — a new social cleavage — what wealtli may 
properly be property? — past issues restated — the new issues not 
merely political. 

Contemporaneous Public Opinion. — In a formal sense, 
with many qualifications, the President represents existing' 
opinion upon a few main issues.^ But our politics have usually- 
failed to make several synchronous clean issues; and under 
cover of one issue, often politicians have forced through vic- 
tories contrary to existing opinion. The high tariff early in 
the Civil War was forced through Congress under cover 01 
the overwhelming Union sentiment against the principles and 
policies of seventy years. Most acts of legislation are rule, 
hot representation ; authority, not service and obedience to the 
public will. 

A Meddlesome Government Cannot Be Strong. — To 
undertake many things is evidence of weakness, of distrust, 
not of strength and of confidence. It usually causes not success 
but failure. A strong government undertakes few things but 
accomplishes these. That our National Government requires 
the service of one man in fifteen of our population is a proper 

^See pp. 30, 31, supra. 



64 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

cause not of felicitation but of alarm. That we pay annually 
$156,000,00x3 in pensions to nearly 1,000,000 persons, one in 
ninety of our population, — there being on the average one 
other person directly benefited by each pension, — is a moving 
cause not of congratulation but of dismay because the general 
need as evidenced by this patriotic pauperism is so great And 
yet we are about to increase by many millions this annual dis- 
tribution of a tax-gathered surplus. Why are we so poor that 
fifty years after the War, our people are not yet upon their 
own feet? 

The Pension Question. — This is not to question the right 
of those who saved the nation at the risk of their lives to a 
dollar-a-day pension. Still, the argument for every mother 
who in travail brings forth a child at the risk of her life for 
national recognition at a dollar-a-day is just as valid. Child- 
bearing is instinctive. So also is fighting. 

Investigation shows that one political cause of soldiers' pen- 
sions is the intention of an effective minority to force high 
revenue duties in the interest of American manufacturing capi- 
talists. Pensions to mothers would mulitply this demand for 
a great national revenue. 

The situation forces a question as to the reasonableness of 
the present politico-economic regime. And the question shows 
also Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, B. Har- 
rison, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft, all ranged upon one 
side ; and Cleveland standing alone upon the other. In attack- 
ing the protective tariff, Cleveland was making also a flank 
movement against extravagant soldiers' pensions. 

No Ecclesiastical Capital Here. — No experienced and 
discerning man who knows the scope of present governmental 
enterprises and who knows the history of other civilizations 
and of other nations can look with complacency upon the im- 
mense political community upon the banks of the Potomac 
devoted solely to government. If we had such a city devoted 
solely to an ecclesiastical community, similarly dominant in 
its field, we would all agree that liberty itself was at stake, 
was indeed at the stake and being consumed by fire. A people 
that produces annually $30,000,000,000 of wealth and spends 
$800,000,000 of it upon its central government alone, not 
counting its State, county and municipal governments, has 
cause not for self-glorification but for self-examination. 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 65 

And the worst of it is the humbug of so much of it, — the 
phrase in so many laws — "The District of Columbia" — as 
though the District actually legislated!^ 

Union and Liberty. — The two essential issues of our 
politics have been national government and the freedom of 
the citizens. Since the beginning, "union and liberty," — to 
use the phrase of Daniel Webster, — has been our desire. We 
have finally decided that national government and independ- 
ence and union are virtually synonymous for the practical pur- 
poses of a large and prosperous population in our land. By 
liberty, we mean the freedom of the individual in respect to 
many matters, — the freedom to acquire property, to work for 
wages or for profits as opportunity affords, to travel, to marry, 
to vote and to hold office, to worship, to talk, to write, to pub- 
lish, to assemble, to resist the interferences and trespasses of 
others, — in short, to live and to act much as one pleases, — ■ 
to do as one wills within the limits of the equal rights of 
others. 

We have decided that a central government, — a strong cen- 
tral government, — let us say plainly, — is essential to national 
independence, and that this government shall be a single in- 
divisible union of all States from seacoast to seacoast and 
from the inland freshwater seas to the salt gulf. We are even 
getting ready to offer to Canada eighteen Senators and thirty 
Representatives to join us. We have located sovereignty not 
in thirteen Capitals from Boston to Augusta in forty-eight 
States from Sacramento to another Augusta but in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. Our States are provinces; and the Federal 
Circuit Courts override their Supreme provincial courts. 

Whereupon millions, mistaking the meaning of terms, have 
imagined that a central government in order to be strong must 
do many things. Yet government cannot do many things 
without thereby transgressing the freedom of the individual 
citizen. Nor is any ruler, even a President, wise enough to 
direct many enterprises. 

Beyond doubt, in civilized society, men cannot be free save 
under strong government. Civil freedom is a creature of law 
vitalized by force. Every person in our history who has 
risen to prominence and to power has stood in some relation 
to this quest for liberty under law. Every President has had 
his influence, good or bad, upon the development of our insti- 

*See pp. 99 et seq., infra. 



66 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

tutions and of public opinion in respect to strong government 
and to the freedom of individuals. 

National Respectability. — Closely connected with the 
main issue of a strong central government to maintain national 
independence and the rights of citizens to liberty under law is 
the minor feature of national respectability in the family of 
nations. To citizens in private life under ordinary conditions, 
this feature is apparently of no immediate personal concern. 
They live remote. Their lives are absorbed in individual 
interests. 

How THE Politician Wins. — Such a situation has invited 
betrayal of national interests and is the mother of fraud. 
Many, many things have been done, many have been neglected 
because most citizens are blind to facts, or misled by false 
cries or by false appearances, or are lost in the remoteness of 
their locations or in the difficulty of their personal affairs. A 
thousand things have been done upon specious excuse or upon 
no excuse, that, upon prior consideration, no majority of the 
citizens, certainly no majority of well-informed citizens, would 
have endorsed. The politician does his turn, plays his trick, 
pockets his gain and makes his get-away before the citizens 
learn his whereabouts or performances. 

To offset Louisiana purchased, according to most citizens, 
wisely though by stealth, we have the Philippines that not one 
citizen in a thousand desires. To offset the substantial gain 
of upper Mexico and California by treaty and purchase after 
war, we have the blood-training from which was born again 
the blood-lust of the Civil War. 

The second of the main issues of American politics has been 
that of the social relations of the inhabitants with one another. 
This issue has taken protean forms, — ecclesiastical, economic, 
political, ethical, educational. 

Two Great Questions. — In the beginning, it was requisite 
to form and to propagate the national idea, — ^to inculcate 
patriotism, to stir pride and resentment against the domination 
of aliens abroad. Forming the national idea was itself a slow 
matter. In this, James Otis perhaps was foremost. He with 
others saw that at last there had been evolved in this land upon 
its eastern side another "peculiar people," different from all 
Others, with different needs, different interests, different capaci- 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 67 

ties, whom no other people could benefit by giving advice to 
them or by exercising authority over them. 

Patriotism and Individual Liberty. — It was the work 
of Revolutionary leaders to stir in the minds of the many 
pride in this soil, resentment against orders issued and taxes 
laid by persons not native here. Samuel Adams, Dabney Carr, 
Patrick Henry, gave their early lives to this propaganda. They 
taught many of their fellow-countrymen to hate a tax, how- 
ever small, that others not native-bom had imposed. The 
British restrictions that they must not manufacture or engage 
in the sea-trade were indeed oppressive. They invaded that 
sphere of liberty which British traditions had held sacred, and 
denied rights and freedoms that were necessary to life and to 
property. Worst of all, the British laws threatened to grow 
worse in the future. Mankind will bravely suffer many a 
present wrong in the morning of the rising sun of progress; 
but once let us believe that the future is dark and foreboding, 
and resistance arms itself, as we all know. 

The Hypocrisy of a Patriot. — With an unfathomable 
hypocrisy, justified by the rules of war, Benjamin Franklin 
professed abroad as agent for various colonies that independ- 
ence was not desired or even thought of ; all that the Americans 
wished was to be let entirely alone, — of course, under the 
Crown. As for Parliament, no Americans were in it or could 
be in it; and "taxation without representation is tyranny." 
The colonists would voluntarily contribute money and men 
for the wars of the empire; but try to coerce them and see- 
rebellion. 

Edmund Burke understood, and in glowing periods ac- 
quiesced. North also understood and, with British soldiers 
and impressed sailors and with Hessian war-slaves and Indian 
savages, tried to crush the natural destiny of this people. 
France seized upon the situation and, with arms and ships, 
handsomely intervened against the ancient enemy, split be- 
tween her Whigs and her Tories. 

The Whigs in England. — ^Whereupon in one of those 
pendulum swings characterizing every human society, the 
electors of England put North and the Tories out and Rock- 
ingham and the Whigs in. In that year, Howe really won. 
Burgoyne and Cornwallis were done for. And then Rock- 
ingham went out, and North came back ; and King George the 



68 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Third reigned over a diminished empire with an irreparably 
lessened glory. The prestige of Great Bi-itain fell. Success- 
ful republican revolution in America hastened revolution in 
France; and Napoleon came in to organize the new social 
order while terrifying the earth. 

Certain Ambitions. — Beneath and within the war of re- 
sistance to longer oversea control, beneath and within the re- 
bellion that came to be a war of independence, there were two 
other forces at work. Of these, the first was the ambition of 
certain natives to be the first Americans, without alien gov- 
ernors and bureaucrats as rivals. They intended to be the 
unchallenged lords, — the owners of lands, the masters of 
trade, the princes of government, free men like the barons of 
old, like the living nobles of England. "I will raise a thousand 
men, subsist them at my own expense, and march on Boston," 
said George Washington. It was not a boast but a confession 
of purpose spoken like a Saxon earl. This was exactly the 
spirit in which later he took command of the army at Cam- 
bridge in the summer of 1775; but he grew wiser. 

The Revolt of the Have-Nots. — There was another 
social force far more significant. Tens of thousands desired to 
get rid of all persons and families of wealth, distinction, cul- 
ture and leisure. It was the spirit of loot, of equality in 
barbarism. Because of it, tens of thousands of Loyalists were 
robbed and exiled. It was an attack upon the existing social 
order. Tom Paine came from England and put its philosophy 
into print. These social rebels meant to have a land in which 
each man does that which is right in his own eyes and there 
is "no judge in Israel." They would farm where they had 
power to seize the lands, make what they chose, whether cloth 
or rum or ships or tools, trade where they would, marry or 
not, enslave if they could, — and be free. 

They made the war of independence into a civil war, — a 
more terrible war than that of 1 861 -'65 because it was in the 
streets of all towns and upon every hillside and in every valley. 
Dr. Benedict Arnold, apothecary turned soldier, cruel, bril- 
liant, bold, lewd, treacherous, was the perfect poison-flower 
of this seed-time and harvest. 

The Younger Men. — But these men of blood, of deceit, 
of pride, were not to control the new nation. Younger men 
who had grown up within the struggle and yet not of it, and 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 69 

older men whom fortune had kept apart from the surging 
hatreds and ambitions, dominated the Federal Convention that 
made the Constitution. Yet they set as their head toothless, 
silent, solid George Washington, "the unwearied Titan of the 
War," who at last had won supremacy over nearly all his ter- 
rible passions. Such sublime self-control does not come with- 
out inner conflicts correspondingly severe. 

And when they began their work, they pledged themselves 
not to talk about it to others or to make notes thereon, — 
which pledge Madison nobly violated for the edification of 
later generations. Moreover, when their work was all done, — 
and so badly done that few even thought they knew what the 
Constitution meant, — only thirty-eight out of fifty-six dele- 
gates ever signed it, no man from Rhode Island and but 
one from New York, — they entered into a further conspiracy, 
— in the true fashion of that great secret society to which most 
of them belonged, — to set their hero upon the pedestal of the 
Presidency and for the glory of the new fatherland to deny 
and to conceal the ugly realities of his life. Thenceforth, 
nearly all Americans accounted it sacrilege to burn daylight 
in the sanctuary of the Washington myth. It has been done 
likewise for their heroes by all other peoples. 

The Contribution of Washington. — The first President 
indeed cared much for the independence and respectability of 
the United States among the nations. This foremost care of 
his explains the central policy of his administrations. Of 
gratitude to France, he would not hear a word. 

A great private property, such as he secured, is an expres- 
sion of character. His was the necessary character of the 
owner of lands, of trade, of slaves, and of money, all alike 
valueless as property unless government sanctions by adequate 
force any and all violations of title. 

Our Politico-Economic System. — Since 1789, our eco- 
nomic system has passed through many stages; nor is it now 
quite the same system as it was then. Still, its fundamental 
principles are these, viz. : 

I. Private property in land by title with or without posses- 
sion and use, whence the "have's" draw rent that the "have- 
not's" or the lesser "have's" pay. 

But since 1789, governmental taxation in State and in mu- 
nicipality has made this property different in nature from 



yo HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

what it was, while the filling up of all desirable localities with 
owners has made rent far higher than then. The property is 
less absolute, but the gain vastly greater. 

2. Private property in goods, in money and in credit, whence 
the "have's" draw interest that the lesser "have's" and the 
"have-not's" pay. 

The rate of interest is but a fraction of what it was in 1789 ; 
but the total amotmt vastly greater. 

3. Private property in profits from the handling of goods 
upon lands by hiring "labor." 

This is the critical point in this economic system. 

4. Wages earned and paid not in proportion to the product 
but according to the law of supply-and-demand. 

The supply has come to be more or less limited by unions 
of laborers; and the demand by associations of capitalists in 
corporations, syndicates, trusts and pools. 

5. A public right of several governments to get revenues 
by taxation direct and indirect. 

This right was admitted gingerly in 1789. To-day, it con- 
sumes on the average seven dollars in every hundred that 
this economic system produces in value of goods and of 
services. 

George Washington had to fight with Great Britain for its 
possession in 1 775-1 781 and again with the Pennsylvania 
backwoodsmen in 1 792 ; and Hamilton had to scheme and to 
contrive for it through half a dozen years. What they did 
on a large scale, all the States and towns and counties were 
also doing. 

Added to the system from Boston to Savannah in 1775, 
there was private property in negroes and limited private 
property in "redemptioners" and other bond-servants. What 
happened to this anachronistic mediaeval feudalism is the very 
substance of our history until 1865. 

Capital and Labor Alienated. — Considered as a whole, 
the existing system is simple. In it, unlike feudalism, with 
its slavery, serfdom, villainage and vassalage, the wealthy have 
no stake in the poor. From labor, they may derive profits or 
sustain losses. But slavery solves, in a sense, the capital-and- 
labor problem because capital owns the labor. The welfare of 
labor is, theoretically, the welfare of capital. 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 71 

Our Social Order. — From our economic system rises our 
social regime. Therein, the landlords, the money-lords, the 
profit-takers, the tax-collectors and the tax-spenders, the wage- 
earners and those who neither pay nor get wages, rent, interest 
and profits, take on names different from these. Moreover, a 
new class appears, — the professional, which has for its busi- 
ness the preservation of mutual rights and the social peace. 
This class has various groups, more or less honored, — lawyers 
and judges, police and soldiers, ministers and priests, teachers 
and professors, nurses and physicians, clerks and officials, 
writers and poets, reporters and editors. In the social regime, 
the economic primacy of the rich is somewhat tempered by a 
biologic primacy of the really well-born, by a customary sta- 
tion of the elite, and by many social graces and decencies 
standardized in age-old traditions. The poverty and the subor- 
dination of the mere hand-to-mouth wage-earners and paupers 
are correspondingly relieved. 

The Constitutional Amendments. — It is in respect to 
this matter that the Constitutional Amendments have signifi- 
cance. The first eleven were proclaimed in force by Wash- 
ington, Adams, and Jefferson as Presidents, being advocated 
by such men as Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Madison. 

Their necessity arose from the fact that men feared that 
the power of the central government would overcome that of 
the States and be used for the oppression of individuals. These 
men foresaw that the sovereign States could not long main- 
tain the rights of their citizens (who were also "the people 
of the United States") against the rising nation because the 
States were certain to become mere provinces. Exactly this 
has come to pass, — United States Circuit and Supreme Courts 
are now haling individuals and States before them in true 
sovereign style. If the plain people had not distrusted the 
future, these "Bill of Rights Amendments" would never have 
been demanded overwhelmingly. Even so, the Federal Gov- 
ernment has won ; but it respects these amendments, which are, 
therefore, amply justified. 

Fortunately in 1790- 1804, we still had the traditions and the 
spirit of Saxon freemen, though the merchants and their at- 
torneys who drew up the main plan of government machinery 
neglected such minor details as "the rights of man." Their 
concern was business. 



^2 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

The Changes by Presidents. — Every President has stood 
in some distinctive personal relation to this economic system 
and to this social regime. The actions of several Presidents 
are startlingly important. Perhaps, the worst mistake ever 
made by a President was the naming of Taney as Chief Jus- 
tice by Jackson ; it was done in good faith and with good will. 
But it resulted in an effort by Taney to supplant the laissez 
faire economic system itself by the Southern feudal system, 
which was, as the event proved, a badly handicapped rival. 

Certain Crimes. — Polk started the Mexican War to get 
cheaper land for the extension of this same anachronistic by- 
system of owner-and-slave. He also hoped to do good, — to 
his section and to his class, which seemed to him his country 
and all the (real) people. 

Roosevelt engineered the morally indefensible Panama 
affair, intending to benefit those in the foreground of his own 
mind, — the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Coast merchants and a 
wider trade. It was an economic class affair glossed over in 
euphemistic terms of patriotism and later confessed as a shame- 
less sin upon those modem housetops, the front columns of 
our newspapers. 

There are other examples closely visible to such as under- 
stand that the present economic system is not an eternal status 
and the present social regime not finality. 

Had Cleveland, and not McKinley, been President in 1898, 
the Spanish War would not have ended in imperialism, — 
probably, it would not have begun. The result of that war 
has been for us to learn that "the Constitution follows the 
flag — sometimes." It follows the flag where the interests of 
the dominant social class designate, for the court obeys the 
sovereign. The significant thing in America is that this "sov- 
ereign" is easily recalled by the democracy. 

To promote the Pacific trade is an insufficient purpose for 
us long to remain in Asia. 

What Washington Did Respecting the Economic 
System. — George Washington as general had foremost in his 
mind the interests of land speculators who would be freer to 
operate out from under Great Britain; but he did not forget 
the desirability of having native rather than British officials of 
government or of developing the American trading-class. He 
was not directly interested in extending slavery or slave-plan- 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 73 

tations or in benefiting wage-earners, rent-taking landlords or 
interest-getting capitalists. As President, he had foremost in 
his mind securing the results. Everything else was incidental ; 
and yet thoup"h incidental, some new purposes existed. 

In a rising industrialism, the merchant who trades in goods 
comes earlier than the employing manufacturer-capitalist. As 
these develop, the banker develops. Clearly, the main domestic 
purpose of Washington was to strengthen the tax-collecting 
and the tax-spending official class. His minor purposes were 
to promote the interests of merchants and of bankers, nor did 
he entirely forget the rising manufacturers. He scarcely saw 
the wage-earner or the freeman who neither draws nor pays 
wages but lives in comparative independence and isolation upon 
a farm or by his blacksmith shop or other trade. Washington 
did not see the negro slave. 

In his Presidency, by advice of Hamilton, a law was passed 
to sell lands at not less than two dollars per acre in plots of 
not less than nine square miles, — but the purchasers were to 
have long credits. As the country had but four banks, this 
gave the rich virtual monopolies and put the poor at their ser- 
vice to labor and to rent or else to pay the speculator's profit. 

The Second Federalist. — John Adams was the lawyer 
who had taken a nation as his client. He went to wreck upon 
the rocks of the "Sedition Laws," aimed at foreigners and at 
others who were criticising especially the political features of 
the new social order. Nova ordo saeclorum was Indeed the 
motto of the United States. The people were still colonial. — 
pro-Gallican, pro-Anglican, — ^very few had yet risen to the 
nationalism of John Adams. Some had found a way-station 
in State-sovereignty. New questions were up, — central gov- 
ernment versus the States; naturalization with the right to 
disavow natal allegiance ; personal liberty ; the relative merits 
of England and France; and, unfortunately, Adams was only 
the fourth, possibly the fif th,^ not the acknowledged "first citi- 
zen" of the land. The others were Washington, Hamilton, 
Jefferson, and perhaps Burr. The event showed that Adams 
was not a leader, but only an instrument, at times unwilling 
and seldom self -understanding. He was wiser after the event. 

As for his management of government, his policy was, with 
minor variations, that of Washington ; but his personal inter- 
ests were distinctly different. He was that native official of 



74 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

g^overnment whom the patriots intended to establish in their 
service. Bred to the law, like tens of thousands of later 
Americans, he lived upon taxes. 

The First Democrat. — Never was another such as 
Thomas Jefferson: violinist, inventor, pseudo-scientist, near- 
scientist, real scientist, gentleman-planter and breeder, kind 
husband, devoted father, diplomat, evader of personal respon- 
sibility, horse-rider, politician, educator, author, philosopher, 
religious leader, intriguer, wine-bibber to the muddling of 
wits; and yet seer, prophet, philanthropist, diplomat and 
statesman, truly polyphase, truly democratic. He even de- 
vised that mathematically convenient township system of to- 
pography upon which has been founded the political organiza- 
tion of many a Western State. By one vote only, his plan 
to exclude slavery from Kentucky and Tennessee was de- 
feated in the Senate. He carried it in the Northwest Ordi- 
nance for the Ohio Territory in 1787; truly, the much 
objurgated last Congress of the Confederation was more lib- 
eral than the lauded Federal Convention. He stood for the 
free pioneers of the receding Appalachian frontiers, — of the 
wood-rangers, hunters and Indian fighters first, of the cattle- 
raisers next, of the land-holding farmers last, — and for the 
wage-earners of the towns; and he stood steadfastly against 
merchants, manufacturers and bankers, government officials, 
landlords and slavelords. He stood; he did not fight. But 
for him, the West that Jackson represented and the populace 
upon whose hearts his fortunes depended would not have ex- 
isted in strength in the lifetime of "Old Hero." 

Jeflferson was somewhat inclined to see the past as ideal. 
His true American was the independent farmer, well-edu- 
cated, self-reliant, interested most in his own household, 
next in his community, next in his State and least in the 
United States; in short, the ancient German allodial free- 
man. 

Jefiferson did three immortal acts, — he did King George by 
the Declaration of Independence, Napoleon by the Louisiana 
Purchase, and Federalism. Thereby, he short-circuited mil 
lions of people into national independence, into the Mississippi 
valley, — richest and finest and widest garden of the Lord upon 
all His earth, — and into democracy. He did five immortal acts, 
— also, he separated church and state in Virginia whence all 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 75 

America drew one lesson, and he founded the University of 
Virginia, the brightest star in the Southern sky. 

But Thomas Jefferson died insolvent. He had widened the 
base of the American economic system, had freed those at the 
bottom of the social pyramid, and had enlightened the minds 
of all civilized mankind. Perhaps, it is an even greater con- 
tribution patiently to keep a nation out of war, as Jefferson 
did, than it is eagerly to thrust a nation into war as certain 
other Presidents and statesmen have done. 

Measure the man fairly. He seems quite the peer of our 
greatest, — even of Franklin, — as a contributor to national and 
general human progress. 

The Dynasty. — ^James Madison was a quieter but richer 
political Jefferson. He saw things somewhat differently and 
in truth looked out upon a different nation and upon different 
world-politics. The planter of Virginia was a little nearer 
and dearer to him ; and he was not quite so firm against mer- 
chants, bankers and manufacturers. James Madison cared 
but little for the slave, for the wage-earner and for the free 
farmer. War was not quite so hateful to him as it was to 
Jefferson; and he had less power to keep down the war-rage 
in Congress. But the times were different. Jefferson did not 
meet Clay in the political arena. 

James Monroe was temperamentally more like Jefferson 
than Madison was. He also died insolvent. Perhaps in respect 
to the economic system and the social order, Monroe had less 
class-interest than any other President. If he was, in any 
sense, partial, he was partial to the independent farmer or 
other freeman. Like Washington and Adams, he stood for 
American nationality. There was no trace of colonialism in 
him. New Orleans and Waterloo had washed this out in 
blood. Spain was almost entirely ousted from the New 
World; and Monroe would set the United States as the pro- 
tector of the new Republics to the South, founded according 
to her example. Like Adams, Monroe was substantially an 
official by habit. 

Under him, the citizens prospered as never before. All 
classes save one prospered, — the wage-earners lost ground. 
In one of his annual messages Monroe was unwise and un- 
kind enough to congratulate labor-employers upon the fall in 
the price of labor. 



76 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

The Missouri Compromise was the little cloud in the sky 
to tell of the coming storm. Cotton and rice and tobacco in 
the South with chattel-slavery of the blacks, serving the lords 
of land, stood over against iron and leather and wool in the 
North with the wage service of the poor, waiting upon the 
pleasure and profit of the lords of money. It was plantation- 
agriculture versus factory-manufacture, farm-agriculture and 
commerce. And no man read the signs of the times. Along 
the line of the edge of lasting winter snow were to be erected 
two almost entirely different social structures. 

The Second Adams. — ^John Quincy Adams had something 
of the universal genius of Jefferson, — diplomat, author, econo- 
mist, scientist, poet, orator, accomplished lawyer, statesman, 
and at the last philanthropist. He tried tremendously hard 
all his life to become good and great; and nearly, perhaps 
actually, succeeded. But he was never amiable. He spent his 
life in public; he was scarcely half -grown when he went post- 
rider for news almost daily to Boston. He was a centraliza- 
tionist and a nation-expander. He belonged to the professional 
class of the lawyer and took the government for his client, not 
the people's government, however, but the government of the 
"superior economic classes." Beyond Monroe, and like Wash- 
ington, he was the President for speculative, adventurous 
business men. Hence, his advocacy of tariff for protection. 
"The Tariff of Abominations" came in his Presidency. 

Arrived in Congress afterwards, he gave voice to the cries 
of the poor, but his allegiance was to the manufacturers of 
his District. The petitions in Congress made even an ex- 
President more famous ; and in this democracy, fame is power, 

"Old Hero."' — The essential Andrew Jackson was the typi- 
cal freeman. He was the self-reliant, forth-stepping, untamed 
and unfettered man. And yet he became himself a speculator 
and an office-holder, a general and a judge, — because he fasci- 
nated millions. He was or seemed the apostle of turn-it-over, 
redistribute the honors, the privileges, the properties. Behold ! 
All things are made new. By him came the first threat of the 
break-up. The predatory rich who were gaining in the North 
from banking and tariff were robbing all citizens in the South 
and many others in the North. The lords of chattel-slaves 
threatened nullification of the nation's statutes as punishment 
of the Northern lords of wage-servitors and government-privi- 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES "j^ 

leged manufacturing capital; and Andrew Jackson, bolder, 
noisier and more willful than any lords, was referee ad in- 
terim. 

The strength of the Presidency was his; and he made life 
more interesting to the average man. In 1833, the public lands 
under new statutes sold at the rate of $4,000,000 worth a 
year; in 1837, at $24,000,000, The people were so busy specu- 
lating that they had no time to raise wheat, which they im- 
ported from Europe at $2 a bushel. 

Jackson was a famous hunter ; he gathered into his hunting- 
bag those great men, — Pakenham, J. Q. Adams, Clay, 
Nicholas Biddle, and Calhoun, — and several minor personal 
enemies. He died well-to-do. 

Restricted Government. — With Van Buren, straight 
business men, — those who a generation before were the radi- 
cals of business but were now its conservatives, — came to the 
saddle. For the first time, we had "real money," intrinsic 
money of redemption. But Van Buren made government 
strong by restricting its energies and by confining them to a 
channel. In earlier days, he had been all for the common man. 
He was not so much an habitual ofiice-holder as our first typi- 
cal politician-President. He was a distinctly successful lawyer 
and made a fortune thereby, — which his official biographers 
scarcely mention. 

Disconcerted Speculative Business. — William Henry 
Harrison was the industrial unit man, the farmer-soldier. 
Party-managers, — meaning thereby the agents of big business, 
— thought they could use him, and manufactured hurrahs 
enough to float him into the Presidency, being greatly helped 
by the delight of the common man in that other "old-hero," 
Andrew Jackson. But Harrison did not travel so much upon 
his own steam. 

Then came a bolt out of the blue! The Whig capitalists, 
who might have found Harrison docile and teachable, found 
Tyler fractious. He was the little slave-owning planter and 
politician frequently in office. In the industrial phase, he was 
a pale reminder of Monroe. The upshot of his work was some 
advance of slaveowners into Texas. But Tyler was also the 
localist, the parochial, the decentralizationlst. And when the 
whole record is studied, his public life becomes respectable 
from an inner consistency of principle not obvious to his con- 



78 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

temporaries. He raised fourteen children, and died with but 
little property. 

Polk the Expansionist. — Polk rushed in. Power- 
hungry, land-hungry, money-hungry, even heaven-hungry, he 
was our first devoutly religious President, our relentless agent 
of manifest destiny. He hurried and harried us on to a goal 
where we shall be found too big to hold together, — for all our 
telegraph and printing-presses and national laws and officials. 
And with his hurrying, he killed himself. He was all for the 
slaveowner and for the land speculator. He put the army 
to work, and in the end paid Mexico a quarter of a dollar, 
two bits, per acre for some million square miles of land. The 
Comstock lode alone paid for it several times over. 

A New Rich Slaveowner. — Taylor and Scott were the 
chief tools of this agent of destiny. In the nick of time, 
Taylor ran for the Presidency and won ; out of keeping with 
the times, later, Scott ran and lost. Taylor was devoutly re- 
ligious. Polk and Taylor, — enemies at deaths so near to- 
gether, — were proponents of fate, meaning their own uncon- 
trollable wills, backed by the wills of millions ; and prayer was 
their penance. 

In his economic phase, Taylor was the money-getting, prop- 
erty-accumulating government man, — for the army is the 
heart of government, — who planted his stakes as he won them 
in lands, in slaves and in cattle. Risking his life in campaigns 
from Lakes to Gulf, he made perhaps half-a-million dollars, 
mysteriously. The lords of the North used him; they were 
all of a piece with himself. 

A Dynasty of Failures. — Fillmore was a lawyer, agree- 
able to respectable men of property and of business, North 
and South. For him, the poor, the plain farmer, the wage- 
earner did not exist save as voters. Except near election, they 
were "hands," the "masses," the unimportant. Perhaps, no 
other President had less principles ; his were self-preservation, 
and such property and offices as came his way easily. 

Pierce, the lawyer, had enough personal graces to make his 
measure of performance seem even the more contemptible. 
He played both ends. South and North, and bent double in 
the real failures of apparent successes. 

Buchanan was the almost constant office-holder, domestic 
and diplomatic, who, nevertheless, by the law acquired a for- 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 79 

tune. He was put into the Presidency to do nothing, and by 
graciously doing nothing, let whatever hell this world knows 
and its fiends loose, Buchanan worked destruction unwill- 
ingly, almost unwittingly. He was too old and perhaps natu- 
rally too dull to see North and South what mischief was afoot. 

The day of Northern lawyers with the South as their sup- 
posed client was past. 

James Buchanan belonged to an elder age, and the pitiless 
misfortune that befell him was to live too long and to be 
raised too high. 

A new time was on hand. He lived in the past. In the 
time of Monroe, these predecessors were alive, — Adams, Jef- 
ferson, and Madison. They obscured him by clouding him 
out with their ancient glories. 

In the time of Polk, these predecessors were alive, — ^J. Q. 
Adams, Van Buren, and Tyler. Again, the President suf- 
fered. 

In the time of Buchanan, these survived, — Van Buren, 
Tyler, Fillmore, and Pierce. 

And Buchanan, who was intellectually their superior, con- 
stilted with them, whereby all the blind together went into the 
ditch. 

The Meaning of the War between the States. — The 
cities of the seacoast had become the trade-agencies of both 
systems. Politics were almost as commercial as to-day, and 
perhaps more commercial than in the second half of the eigh- 
teenth century. The cities carried water on both shoulders 
and caught trade both going and coming. The cotton-factors 
grew rich; the jobbers of manufactured goods likewise; and 
the city bankers. The greater lords of capital in the North 
tried to stay out of the combat as neutrals. The wage-servants 
of the North, believing themselves to be free, the small farm- 
ers who were plucked without knowing it, the tradespeople 
who shared in the commercial spoil, rose enthusiastically, 
going themselves and sending their sons into the fight, and 
even allowing their daughters to nurse the sick and wounded. 
They meant to save nationality as it had been; what they 
saved was nationality, it is true, but it was a nationality 
operated in a joint agreement between tariff beneficiaries, the 
Grand Army of the Republic and the bankers. The consumers 
of goods, fined by mysterious indirect taxes, paid the bills. 



8o HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

In the South, with the lords of lands and of slaves, rose 
all free laborers. All the South, the proud and the lowly, went 
into battle, — to save their economic system upon which the 
social structure depended. 

The Whig Turned Republican. — Lincoln was the 
lawyer-spokesman of the speculative business men of the 
North, not of the conservatives and routinists. He was, 
economically, the typical Whig politician. Clay was his early 
worship. For his client, he took the Constitution broadly 
construed as he understood it. His followers imagined that 
things are what they are called. They pictured the horrors of 
chattel-slavery, and the glories of wage-service, neither being 
at least universally characteristic. They called it the "free 
North" against the "slave South." Numbers began to win, 
with the resources of bankers, of manufacturers, of railroaders, 
of merchants, all out for profits, at their service. The lords 
of capital began to buy up the Federal Government with 
bonds. They raised the tariffs beyond the dreams of former 
avarice and put government commissariats and private citizens' 
households under commercial bondage. They leagued the 
Government with the banks through the bonds. With drafts 
and bonuses and wonderful promises of pensions and honors, 
they flooded the poorer youth of the North out upon Southern 
battle-fields. 

The time of the War between the States, — under the Con- 
stitutions, the old and the imitation-new, — was a time of 
riotous growth for stay-at-homes of every class, — bankers, 
manufacturers, landowners, farmers, freemen, wage-earners, 
professional men. Money, of various kinds, was plentiful. 
Prices soared; and profits were amazing. While some men 
were dying on battlefields, other men were running a railroad 
across to the Pacific. And the government had given away 
the finest provinces of the empire as bonuses to railroad- 
builders and "financiers." Never before had public resources 
gone so readily to the benefit of individuals. 

And Lincoln, seeking his one goal, union, was powerless to 
prevent this sudden development into plutocracy, government 
by and for wealth. 

Things are Seldom What They are Called. — The 
Southerners also imagined that things are what they are called. 
They pictured the men and boys of the North as dull laborers 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 8i 

and greedy money-getters and their own people as universally 
war-heroes, neither being universally characteristic. They 
dreamed also that the wage-servants of England would back 
the lords of capital and for the sake of food and shelter bow 
before King Cotton. This also was error. The laborers of 
England thought of the black slaves as equal human beings, 
which was still another error. 

At last, all were swept into the maelstrom, — South and 
North, "have's" and "have-not's," the happy and the hungry, 
country-men and city-dwellers, learned and ignorant, even the 
servants, all save Northern capitalists who stayed home and 
gained more capital out of the fear and misery of the rest. 
Suspension of habeas corpus in the North, invading armies in 
the South put an end to liberty. When the end came, the 
"hungry have-more's" and the "happy have's" of the South 
were dead or desolate; but the "hungry have-more's" of the 
North had piled up riches. The cemeteries were full of the 
named and nameless dead of a criminal war. One-third of 
our national wealth was gone; all the rest was obligated for 
$3,000,000,000 of bonds drawing 6 and 7 per cent, gold, for 
which paper way below par had been paid ; and obligated also 
for yet more in pensions to Northern soldiers. 

The Net Gain. — For what was the immense treasure paid ? 
For what were these lives laid down? To maintain the old 
Union, the one nation for its own sake and lest other cleavages 
befall later; and to replace the Southern chattel-slavery and 
its responsibility of the master for support with the Northern 
wage-service and its hire-and-fire of the master and work-or- 
shirk of the laborer. 

It was a costly transition for the slaves, — of whom un- 
counted hundreds of thousands perished of want and its con- 
sequent diseases. In the end, not only did the old South dis- 
appear but the old North also. It was a common ruin; into 
the vacuum of the North came the millions of Europe, into 
that of the South, the flotsam and jetsam drift of the North. 

Legally, it was the work of John Marshall, Chief Justice, 
bequeathed by John Adams, and of Roger Brooke Taney, Chief 
Justice, bequeathed by Andrew Jackson. Marshall had ruled 
that the Supreme Court can declare laws null for unconstitu- 
tionality. Accordingly, Taney made the Missouri Compromise 
null. Together, they kept open the Pandora's box of consti- 



82 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

tutional revision unchecked by any other authority. Had the 
original Constitution, — that of Madison, before its amend- 
ment by Marshall, — contained a provision calling for a de- 
cennial or quarter centenary convention of revisionists prop- 
erly constituted and assembled, or had it created a Congress 
with the Constitution-making power of Parliament, there 
would have been no Interstate War. Humanity has at last 
reached the stage when it would rather argue than kill. But the 
amended Constitution created a feud between North and 
South ; and they fought it out. 

In the end, the colored man was not a slave attached to the 
person of his owner but a serf attached to a job, — ^like every 
wage-employe of the North. Also, in the end, the Republic 
was less of a federation and more of a nation than before ; and 
the free citizen looked less to the Capital of his State and 
more to the Capital of the United States. 

Slavery Not the Cause of the War. — Slavery was not 
the cause of the Interstate War. Brutal treatment of slaves 
was not common enough for that. They never rose in order to 
win the freedom of wage-service. The alleged deep wrong of 
owning a person but one or two or three generations removed 
from savagery in Africa was a wrong not felt by the person 
owned, but only by remote sentimentalists. We had slavery 
since 1619. To isolate a cause, eliminate the common factors 
present when in the same situation the corresponding effect 
failed to manifest itself. The plausible assertion that the 
wrongs of the bondmen piled up until at last they overtopped 
the endurance of the slaves themselves, of their masters, and 
of Northern spectators and philanthropists is historically con- 
trary to fact, for the slaves multiplied ; whereas races increas- 
ingly oppressed decrease in numbers, of inevitable course. 

Not the rising resentment of slavery as ethically wrong, — 
which is indubitable, — not even fanatic abolitionism was the 
cause of the Inter-State War. John Brown failed ignomini- 
ously in his raid ; and no other John Browns were likely to ap- 
pear. The North was altogether anxious to leave slavery 
alone. 

The State's rights doctrine did not cause the war. It con- 
tinues to this day, and yet no war comes. It is the very anti- 
thesis of war, seeking to avoid collisions of sections by mak- 
ing the burden of national government light. 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 83 

Nor was the war "a necessary evil," something that "must 
needs be for the final good." Men used to think that measles, 
chickenpox, and that nerve-disease which from its symptoms 
is styled "whooping-cough," were good for children, and 
necessary because they were so general. But now we know 
better. All wars are wicked, just as all diseases are evils. 
Said Benjamin Franklin, "There never was a good war or an 
unjust peace." 

Certain Conditions and Forces. — A cause is the sum 
total of the conditions and forces whence a result issues. The 
blood-lust only sleeps in the heart of man, Yancey and 
Toombs, the fire-eaters; senile and loquacious Taney, — sene- 
scent, shuffling and misunderstanding Buchanan; a Constitu- 
tion rigid on paper, but bending in fact at the will of the few 
Supreme Court Justices, and a strange Northern faith in the 
perfection of the wage-service, capitalistic system over against 
a convinced Southern belief in the necessity of the chattel- 
slave, landlord system: these were the forces and the condi- 
tions that were the cause of the Inter-State War. 

It was a futile war that settled only the trivial bondage 
feature of the vital race-conflict. They have rights only who 
dare and can maintain them. The negro cannot be the equal 
of the white. Of course, we are a nation of several castes, — 
natives of many generations, mostly at leisure or its equivalent, 
white foreigners mostly at labor ; both voting ; and the colored 
who labor but do not vote. To deny this is as foolish as it is 
hypocritical. 

Impeached for His Merits. — Half-tailor, half-official, all- 
defiant, Johnson spoke for the poor. He was all for the rights 
of localities and of individuals. None understood him. The 
Presidency is for lawyers, being usually attorneys for interests. 
Some day, historians will show and the people will know that 
Andrew Johnson, personally full of faults, made the Presi- 
dency itself as an office powerful. His vetoes display the free 
man of the people standing upon the rights of his office. It 
is respectable to say that "if Lincoln had lived, the South 
would have had its rights. Far, far more likely Is it that if 
Lincoln had lived, he also would have been impeached for 
doing his duty as God gave him to see it. 

Congress Overrides the Supreme Court. — It is not yet 
"standard history" to tell that in the term of Johnson, the 



84 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

plunderers in Congress passed a law forbidding the Supreme 
Court, upon pain of fine and imprisonment, to declare their 
laws unconstitutional; not until 1875 did the court dare to 
call this law unconstitutional. And yet if any law is uncon- 
stitutional, this "Force Bill" against the South was such, being 
also essentially wicked, corrupt and base. White indeed does 
Johnson seem side by side with Thaddeus Stevens, the iron- 
manufacturer, overseer of Congress. 

The Social Situation at the Capital. — The War had 
unsettled all social relations. It had created great breaches in 
the walls of the old society North as well as South, into which 
as into vacuums the waters of the general rushed. The rich 
were impoverished, the strong and noble were dead, the learned 
were out of date and scorned. It was a time of new measures 
and of new men. And more than any other city of the land, 
not excepting the ruined cities of the South, Washington was 
changed. Except in minor clerkships, only new faces were to 
be seen. Here and there out of the ocean of the new, an ante 
helium mountain top like Teneriffe arose. 

The newspaper correspondence of the period is amazing, — 
it is even more interesting than that of the time of Andrew 
Jackson and the arrival of the new West. The nouveaux 
riches had replaced the Southern slave barons and the North- 
ern attorneys and capitalists. Certain departments, such as 
the Interior, were already sinks of pollution. There was a 
change of manners ; a change of ethics ; a change of values ; a 
change in the sense even of decency. There is a new flaunting 
of wealth, of power, of what money and power will attract. 
Writing of a scene at the doors of the Capitol at the impeach- 
ment of the President, a brilliant woman correspondent wrote 
to a Northern newspaper, "Now came the wives of the wealthy 
members, not the leading ones, for great men seldom take time 
to get rich. More carriages, and the demimondes flutter out, 
faultless in costume, fair as ruby wine, and much more dan- 
gerous. The carriages bring the cream, and the street cars the 
skim milk."^ They fill the ladies' galleries whenever orators 
speak. 

It was not so before the War. It has been so ever since. 
It grew worse under Grant, quieted under Hayes, rose under 
Arthur, concealed itself under Cleveland, was rampant under 
McKinley. It is the very essence of a government by special 

'^Olivia Letters, Emily E. Briggs. 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 85 

interests, for the special interests, and of us all except the 
special interests. To flaunt their wives or their women is the 
evidence of "easy money" and of the confident, unrestricted, 
unchallenged power of male humanity. 

After the War, Grant followed. Stripped of his fame and 
of the gratitude of the compulsory Unionists, he appears a 
soldier-yeoman with one feature of genius, ability to handle 
masses of men. Raised to a pinnacle whence one may view the 
world, he saw in it opportunities for companionship with the 
rich and for helping his friends at the expense of society 
organized as government. For him as for Jackson, a people's 
favor exercised a dispensing power. 

Reconstruction Compared with Secession, — Recon- 
struction, by the same arms that had forced secession to defeat, 
was far more of a moving cause for war than anything that 
the South had done or suffered hitherto. But the South was 
helpless. Reconstruction followed defeat and ruin. Repu- 
diation followed reconstruction and horror. Readjusting fol- 
lowed repudiation and shame. And the old South with her 
glory is buried deep in the ashes of pitiless crimes, wrongs and 
disasters. 

Hayes the Beneficent. — Then Hayes arrived, taking con- 
stitutionally, legally and by common consent what was not 
his in ethics. He was a beneficent soul, comfortable from 
rents and interests, and not eager. Though not a decentraliza- 
tionist, he put an end to force. He did some hunting, but with 
snares, not with guns. He was religious and pious, virtuous 
and contented, but he was not self-gratulatory. God was good 
to him, and he was grateful, not grasping for more ; and yet 
because of the economic system, the more and more kept com- 
ing, for he was a steward, not a spender, of riches. More 
bishop than statesman, he is unique in our record. 

Garfield and Arthur. — All for national glory, ready to 
bargain for aggrandizement, Garfield counts mainly as evi- 
dence of what manner of man the people of the year 1880 de- 
lighted to honor. He was the yeoman turned scholar, then 
general, then legislator, always poor and healthy and self-con- 
fident, a lawyer public servant; and like some contentious 
lawyers, he set all the country by the ears. 

Arthur was a gay and happy poor man usually in office, 
nearly devoid of principles, using manners, graces and favors 



86 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

in their stead. He cared almost nothing about to-morrows. 
His was a pleasant figure at not too close a view. 

Government is Not Good in Itself. — As from another 
world came Grover Cleveland, manifesting that to be respect- 
able government must be economical and honest. He worked 
like a man in a dream. Servant of the new commercial classes, 
he brought in a new age, but not to stay. Strong government 
never dissipates its energies. Riotous memories of the past 
were shut into a compartment of his mind, and its door was 
never opened. 

A central government pursuing many enterprises is in the 
way of destruction, and its people are on the way to "bread 
and a circus." Jefferson, Madison, Van Buren, and Lincoln 
had glimpses of this truth, for which Cleveland, too dull to 
apply the principle rigidly, was nevertheless brave enough to 
go to battle and to defeat calmly; and then to go again to 
battle and to victory. 

A Link in the Tariff Chain. — ^Another and a greater 
lawyer but lesser public servant defeated and then was de- 
feated by Grover Cleveland. This was Benjamin Harrison, 
worker for tariff-protected manufacturers and bent upon 
national expansion. 

A Modest Imperialist. — Then came William McKinley, 
a happy-less-than-nothing, a lawyer-politician, habitual office- 
holder, speculating iron manufacturer the while, existing al- 
most solely for the development of the tariff. Thanks to what 
happened under this amiable helot of millionaires, we now 
police a quarter of the world. Oh, for a day of someone else, 
— the day we took the Philippines ! Would that it had been a 
day of a man of gracious common sense like Madison or Lin- 
coln, or of angry resistance like Van Buren or Cleveland. For 
it makes a deal of difference to one's children's children who is 
our President. Not even Polk could have done worse. 

A Hunter. — Roosevelt was a plunger. A big game-hunter 
in forest and in politics, he took his prey everywhere. Land- 
lord, money-lord, writer, by profession, and always an office- 
seeker when not in office of peace or war, he admired most the 
permanent classes. 

The pictures in the gallery of the mind of Roosevelt were 
seldom hung and were usually not even framed ; the corridors 
went unswept and the windows unwashed ; but it was an im- 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 87 

mense gallery full of a variety of pictures; and at the doors, 
to all a welcome. 

A Contented Man. — Socially, the most pleasant of men 
to know are the unworried poor, whom Roosevelt scorned and 
occasionally condemned. And yet being ever contradictory, 
he made one such President, — William Howard Taft, very 
useful to the powers behind government according to the ever- 
increasing demands of bankers, of transporters of goods, of 
merchants, of manufacturers and of capitalists. And yet the 
fate of Fillmore, of Pierce, and of Buchanan his prototypes 
may be his. 

A New Social Cleavage. — To-day, a new social cleavage 
threatens. Whether it will break, as did the Revolution of 
1775, in every city and town and village and hamlet and in 
the open country, or as secession did in 1861 between sections, 
no man knows. The economic system that became universal 
after Appomattox is working out to its logical end. By our 
legislation, and by our court decisions, we guarantee to pro- 
tected manufacturers "reasonable profits"; to capitalists em- 
ploying their wealth in business, we guarantee interest upon 
their money, — except every dozen years when a natural panic 
readjusts artificial values, — and "reasonable restraints of com- 
petition" ; to our laborers, by police and militia, we guarantee 
the "free rights of labor" ; and to landlords their rents unless 
the tenants are in poverty. Employers in midwinter can and 
do discharge thousands of laborers penniless upon the streets 
without notice. Employers can and do lock the doors of their 
factories so that their laborers perish in holocausts. Em- 
ployers can and do about as they please. For every wrong 
to one negro, in slavery, wrongs to a hundred whites in wage- 
service may be set forth. The future is capitalized, the public 
good will, statute law, natural monopoly; and stocks are 
watered accordingly. 

And from top to bottom, wage-earner, manufacturer, 
freighter, trader, banker charges all that the traffic will bear in 
one consistent and yet not universal covetousness. The work- 
ers organize in unions and make war, — with conspiracy and 
with dynamite, — against the lords of land, of capital and of 
privilege. The vaunted free-labor system is supplied with 
laborers by immigration from Europe, — one-seventh of our 
people are foreign-born, one-sixth more are the children of 



88 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

the foreign-born/ and the reproduction of the ante bellum 
stock has long since ceased to equal its death-rate, — and we 
wonder why our free institutions do not work well. A really 
great people multiplies by its own reproduction. 

On field, in mine, in factory, in store and office, we ask, — 
"What next?" Our cities multiply; their populations grow; 
but does the average level of intelligence and of morality rise? 
We seem at last awakening to the fact that heredity counts 
as well as education. But then Priscilla herself was a Mul- 
lins from Ireland. 

What Wealth May Properly Be Property.— Of course, 
it is a question of poverty in the midst of plenty. Savagery 
and barbarism do not tolerate it. Civilization always produces 
it. Nearly all Americans are wage-servants and rent-tenants, 
hungry and happy "have-not's" waiting upon the "have's" to 
let them take food and shelter enough to keep them alive for 
more wage-earning and rent-paying. And all Americans have 
come clearly to see that the mode of government operation 
exists primarily not for property as such, — property is the 
reservoir of wealth, the residuum of lives, the guarantee of 
the future, and absolutely necessary, which makes impertinent 
the question whether or not it is desirable, — but for certain 
kinds of property, accumulated by government-privilege, mu- 
nicipal. State or national. 

Some Past Issues Restated. — Originally, the supporters 
of high protective tariffs asserted that when .loaded with 
profits, the capitalists would pay the wage-earning, hand-to- 
mouth, -give-us-day-by-day-our-daily-bread "have-not's" gen- 
erous wages. But appetite grew by what it fed upon; and the 
paid tariff attorneys in Congress made profits grow by statute 
while wages remained under the iron law of demand-and- 
supply. 

We do not know what "sound currency" means; we never 
have had it. Inflation is to the interest of speculators and of 
all other debtors ; comes with silver flooding from the mines 
or with gold likewise as well as from fiat paper money flooding 
out of government printing shops. 

Credit freely given is inflation. So is spendthriftism, which 
keeps money going about fast. 

But asking for specie instead of a bank check or a paper 
dollar is a bear operation, just as issuing a paper dollar or a 

^Census of 1910; summary published December, 1911. 



ESSENTIAL ISSUES 89 

silver dollar at 16 to i when the market value is 31 to i is a 
bull operation; and in this fashion, men merrily make war 
upon one another, and throw aside the dead. 

Internal improvements upon government taxes mean graft 
— for the localities collected from all of us, and for the con- 
tractors and laborers who otherwise would be less competed 
for in the industrial markets. The next generation may try 
to pay the bills to the workless and worthless sons and daugh- 
ters of to-day's bondholders. 

The expansion of slavery meant offsetting the artificial ex- 
pansion of wage-service in the North and increasing the supply 
of raw materials and also the markets for the manufactured 
goods of the "have's" and "have-not's" alike of the North. 

Territorial expansion into Louisiana and Oregon and Alaska 
was to help the "have-not's"; into Upper Mexico, the Philip- 
pines and Porto Rico, to help the "have's" primarily. 

And this history exploded the myth that "you cannot help 
one man without helping every other," for the artificially en- 
riched capitalist became a competitor of the poor man for 
agricultural and mining and lumber lands and bid up prices 
beyond his reach. A big navy and government glory and a 
vast pension list, the spread of exports to three billions of 
value a year, and newspapers full of political news, and legis- 
latures weltering in bills, bills, bills (mostly private, however), 
have not concealed from the "have's" who are content with 
economic gain and from the Intelligent "have-nots" the real 
inner truth of this process. The birth rates of the various 
classes and nationalities tell the story. New England no 
longer has youth and children of the old stock; and her legis- 
lators average past fifty years in age. 

The New Issues Not Merely Political. — The race ques- 
tions and the Mormon question go below economics and con- 
cern flesh-and-blood, the moral ideas, the intellectual aspira- 
tions, and the quality of our population. They concern our 
fellowship in the nations of the world; they concern our reli- 
gion, our education, and morals and manners. Both negro 
and Morman are to-day manipulated for the benefit of the 
Republican party, which is the defender of property-as-It-is. 
What may be righteously the subject of property? What is 
liberty in a complex and multitudinous society ? Does modern 
property force the growth of cities? Does the secret ballot 



90 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

teach cowardice and lying ? What new classes are coming ? Is 
caste already here? 

With the commands, "Thou shalt not covet" and "Thou 
shalt not kill," ringing in our ears, — being natural laws, they 
ring whether they are known to come from Sinai or not, — 
present political alignments are becoming obsolete. Politics 
never do manage vital issues; but politics may become so 
trivial as to become worse than base, — they become absurd. 

To have political divisions respecting ethical issues brings 
a nation into the contempt of the discerning. 

The two black-and-white race questions are not settled. We 
do not yet know what to do with Afro-Americans or with the 
Hispano-Filipinos. Inequality and friendliness in the rela- 
tion of owner and bondman did not settle the relations of 
negro and Caucasian. Inequality and alienation in the rela- 
tion of employer and wage-servant have not settled them. 

The Filipino situation is likewise unsettled. 

The Mormon question with Its content of polygamy and 
ecclesiastical domination is just as serious. To-day, political 
Democracy as a party stands for "a white man's land," not 
knowing exactly the purport of the phrase. But Republicanism 
protects the Mormon hierarchy, and polls Its votes In the Leg- 
islatures of six States and in the Congress of all the States. 

All the while, the mythical average man is asking the ques- 
tion, — "What does this party (or that party) think of prop- 
erty itself and of my liberties?" He fails to see that parties 
do not think ; they are instruments only, when old, the Instru- 
ments of power and privilege; when new, the instruments of 
thought. 

To-day, the State, which is the visible body of government, 
is universal and dominant. There are no outlaws from Key 
West to Cape Nome ; but the Church, which is the visible body 
of religion, is by no means universal or powerful. There are 
millions of infidels in the land. Our morals and ethics are 
in confusion from conflicting race-standards and no standards 
at all. Race-equality fanatics. Mormon propagandists, the 
apostles of revived Oriental cults find open forums here. 

As abolitionism split the old Whig and Democratic parties, 
ending the former, so progressivism may split the present 
Republican and Democratic parties, ending the former. Aboli- 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 91 

tionism opposed slavery, progressivism opposes outworn laws, 
including the tariff. 

Our Doom is to Change and to Grow. — We have lived 
through several social revolutions and many other social 
changes; and more portend. Our Presidents of the future 
must be more than politicians and go deeper than any other 
Presidents hitherto have gone into the struggles at the heart of 
humanity. 

The American ship of State rides "chartless upon the storm- 
engendering sea of liberty." Upon every quadrennium of 
Presidential election, with some Washington or Jackson, Lin- 
coln or'Roosevelt, the new storm may break over us. As we 
skirt the coasts of change, not often or for long do we find 
quiet harbor under a Monroe, a Fillmore or a Benjamin Har- 
rison. Four times, we have added great areas to our domain, 
— in the days of Jefferson, of Polk, of Johnson, and of Mc- 
Kinley. Are we yet to add other areas ? If so, are we to wake 
up some morning with a section of China or of Mexico or of 
Canada added by the trustees of political power directed by 
the lords of wealth? We are doomed to go on and on; but 
as a single nation, only until when? 



CHAPTER III 
The Principles and History of Our Political Parties 

Fundamental court and country parties — capital and labor — Republicanism 
and Democracy — high tariffs — individualism — ancient and colonial 
politics — part played by Madison in Constitutional Convention — 
Federalism — Democracy — strict construction of Constitution — two 
lists of Presidents, before and after Jackson — the party convention — 
manhood suffrage — social revolution — National Republicanism — 
slavery and Douglas — Copperheadism — negro-rights amendments — 
free coinage of silver — Americanizing the foreigner — Anti-Masonry 
— Whiggism — Clay and Webster — Compromise of 1850 — Liberty — 
Birney — Free Soil — J. P. Hale — Know Nothingism — spread of 
Roman Catholicism — Seward — free public education — wages, prices 
and standard of living — Republicanism — first principles achieved— 



g2 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

definition of party — Squatter Sovereignty — lyceums — Ostend Mani- 
festo — Dred Scott decision — Lincoln — legal tender — national banks — 
city and farm — reconstruction — insurgency — Liberal Republicans — 
factionalism — reciprocity — insurgency — Greenbackism — Peter Cooper 
— Prohibitionism — a two-party nation — ethical influences — Populism — 
Bryan — Socialism — state and cooperative — individual freedom through 
politics — the problem society and individual. 

Playing the Roulette Wheel. — In the fourth decade of 
the nineteenth century, we set up the Convention system for the 
nomination of Presidential candidates. It corresponds closely 
with the roulette wheel. One who expects to get men of a 
high order out of hurrah conventions could expect always to 
win a loo-to-i play. 

The Fundamental Court and Country Parties. — In 
the second decade of this twentieth century, we have two great 
parties, the Democratic and the Republican, and several small 
parties, among them the Prohibitionist and the Social Demo- 
cratic or "Socialist," as it has been named under court order 
in several States. Under all political parties runs the line of 
social cleavage, formulated as "capital" and "labor," meaning 
"capitalists" and "trade union laborers." With the capitalists 
are affiliated the "middle class," composed mostly of trades- 
people and small farmers, the professional men, the clerks, and 
the non-union laborers, including farm-hands. 

Capital and Labor. — To the capitalists and their allies, 
the Republicans offer, first, "prosperity" through protection 
of American manufacturers, thereby securing profits to them, 
though profits are not guaranteed to any other class of Ameri- 
cans, and, second, national honor through strong central gov- 
ernment. To the laborers and their allies, the Republicans 
offer "prosperity through constant work at high wages." For 
thirty years and more, this program has constituted the hold 
of the Republican party upon the National Government. 

To the capitalists and laborers alike, the Democrats appeal 
as consumers, with so much income with which to buy so 
much merchandise, asserting that lower tariffs and less costly 
government mean lower prices and "more goods for your 
money." The Democrats have the advantage of a solid South 
shut to Republicanism by the crimes of reconstruction. The 
party struggles have been in the North and in the West. The 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 93 

Democratic party has been right upon the race-question, in 
comparison with which, properly, the South thinks all other 
questions trivial/ 

The Democratic party has existed since the beginning of 
American political history. Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, 
and George Mason were all democrats.^ Thomas Jefferson 
formulated Democracy and gave it party existence. Jackson 
made his important contribution by giving the offices to the 
people, — "fishers and choppers and ploughmen shall constitute 
the State," as Emerson said. Calhoun made his contribution 
of political metaphysics. Cleveland redeemed Democracy by 
showing that a government that rejects tasks not strictly gov- 
ernmental, a non-meddlesome government, may, nevertheless, 
be all the stronger by reason of concentration upon its proper 
tasks.^ 

Republicanism and Democracy. — Though since 1861 the 
Republican party with contemptuous pride has viewed the 
Democratic as "in the opposition," American history abund- 
antly warrants the statement that the Republican theory is 
transient while the Democratic is permanent. A protective 
tariff, unless prohibitive, is always and necessarily unstable. 
Moreover, strong central government is always and neces- 
sarily so restrictive of individual initiative and ingenuity as to 
invite resentment while at the same time constricting growth 
of population by reproduction, the main security of nations 
and the first criterion of their happiness. As a class-party, 
Republicanism constantly is hard put to it to find and to pub- 
lish new and extraneous issues lest its falsity to the truth of 
universal history be obvious. Some of these extra and non- 
cognate issues have, however, been admirable. 

Though Anti-Federalism was logically Democratic, Federal- 
ism itself was not Republicanism but a far broader philosophy. 
Federalism was neo-constitutionalism, in a sense, nationalism. 
Chief Justice Marshall and his associates of the Supreme 
Court by setting themselves up as a non-reviewable constitu- 
tional convention in continual session made Federalism legally 
Americanism. Federalism was absorbed and dissipated in its 
own success. Thereafter, it had no reason for existence, and 
accordingly disappeared. For a time under Madison, Monroe, 

^See p. 90, supra. "See p. 68, supra. *See pp. 6z, 65, 86, supra. 



94 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

and J. Q. Adams, all Americans were Democrats, trying to 
find the rights of the States and of the individuals beneath the 
foundations of a Federalistic Nation. South Carolina "nulli- 
fication" and Confederate "secession" were earthquakes. 
When Jackson broke "Biddle's Bank," he tore out one of the 
great halls of the Federalistic National structure. What Wash- 
ington, Hamilton^ and John Adams tried to do with the one 
National Bank, Lincoln and Chase and John Sherman did far 
better with their chain of National Banks, — banking with 
democratic dispersion. And what both Jackson the Democrat 
and John Sherman the Republican did in demanding and get- 
ting specie payment, "intrinsic money of redemption," was the 
work of democratic individualism. Only excessive "national- 
ism" attempts fiat money, legal tender, greenbacks, irredeem- 
able paper currency, — all of which came in the Interstate War 
for the extraordinary purpose of "saving the Union." The indi- 
vidual with gold dollars in his pocket, with a deed to his house 
and garden-close duly registered in a Government office, and 
with hjs job, is the true democrat. In seeking to secure to him 
the job of making his employer rich and theoretically generous, 
Republicanism is seeking to produce the true democrat; but 
in so doing, it creates the two classes, one of government-privi- 
leged masters and the other of wage-earning Servants. By its 
legal tenders and national bank notes and its government bonds 
for debts, Republicanism makes money plenty and stimulates 
speculative business.^ Democracy does not seek to produce the 
true democrat, believing that in a free society with a minimum 
of government assistance and meddling, the true democrat 
grows of himself. The views of Republicanism and of Democ- 
racy in respect to government and to human nature are mu- 
tually exclusive. Democracy considers government a conces- 
sion to the weakness and errancy of human nature and a con- 
venient method of advertising social customs and of publish- 
ing in words the natural laws established in facts. 

Individualism. — Democracy lets the individual work out 
his own destiny, but Republicanism coddles him. Trade-re- 
strictions and non-importation laws are all forms of the social 
taboo characteristic of primitive societies. In civilized nations, 
they are atavistic and fortunately intermittent in appearance 

^See p. 104, infra. 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 95 

and transient in term. Free trade, like free speech within the 
gates of one's own lands and like equal rights beyond their 
bounds, is the sign manual of true civilization. 

Ancient and Colonial Politics. — Human societies have 
taken various forms, — tyrannies, tribes, communities, mon- 
archies, republics, what not? Governments change, national 
lines disappear, languages, religions, institutions vanish; but 
men grow like grass. The individual is a unit, — for all one 
knows, he is from everlasting to everlasting. The real man 
has been the same whether Sargon or slave, Caesar, Charle- 
magne, Shakespeake, yeoman or lord. Once out of childhood, 
the real man has always been virtually self-sufficient with a 
surplus to spare, — he carries more than his own weight. He 
asks nothing tangible from government; he asks by it justice, 
and shares in its transactions equally with others on the level 
floor of a common humanity. When the self-sufficient man 
with the surplus turns his superabundant strength to tres- 
passing upon others, he must be curbed. In the democratic 
conception, government is concerned with preventing such 
trespass and in punishing it when accomplished, and is con- 
cerned with little else. 

The roots of Federalism and of Democracy lay in the 
colonial soil. The colonies were variously governed at the 
top, but most of them had the same mode of local govern- 
ment, — the assembling of the citizens for discussion and vot- 
ing. New England called this "town-meeting" ; and wher- 
ever it may, persists yet in this indubitable democracy. 

Conceived in the broadest terms, the local communities m 
nearly all the colonies had democracy in the sense of majority 
rule after public discussion. Similarly conceived in the broad- 
est terms, the government of the colony was superimposed 
from without as by an absentee but absolute sovereign. The 
local government was usually weak and often vacillating, — 
not government by force but control by speech and influence. 
The central government, — from the Capital of the Colony 
backed by the oversea Crown, — was the government by force. 

In the War of Independence itself, the partisans of each 
theory of government were deeply concerned. Patrick Henry 
was the true parish-meeting democrat, George Washington 
the aristocrat real or would-be, proposing to put oversea and 
alien aristocrats aside that native gentlemen might rule. 



96 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Part Played by Madison in the Federal Convention. 
— In the Constitutional Convention, the partisans of each 
theory again took part. Between the two factions, James 
Madison played with matchless finesse. Hence arose the 
amazing complications of the Constitutional checks and bal- 
ances. In the end, the partisans of the theory of force-govern- 
ment had a by no means complete victory. In other terms, 
the capitalists who save, administer and direct wealth had 
rather the better of the four months' argument with those 
theorists who, consciously or unconsciously, were playing the 
hand of the laborers and wealth-producers. The men who 
would not sign the Constitution bore eloquent testimony ; they 
were ultra-democrats.^ 

The members of the Convention scarcely foresaw that 
parties would arise to choose Senators and Congressmen and 
even the President. They certainly looked upon the Electoral 
College as a device absolutely safe from party manipulation, 
as the documents prove. ^ 

Federalism. 

The Federalists fought through to success the struggles for 
the ratification of the Constitution in twelve of the thirteen 
States, — Rhode Island long held out. Yet according to its 
own text, the Constitution was not to be fully in force until 
unanimously ratified.^ Still, the Federalists went boldly for- 
ward. Three of their number wrote "The Federalist" to inter- 
pret the Constitution. So absolute was their hold upon the 
State Legislatures, which in 1788 chose all the Electors, that 
they elected George Washington unanimously as President. 
It was their good fortune to have in him the one most admired 
man in the nation, a circumstance that suppressed many an 
otherwise Anti-Federalist vote. They organized the govern- 
ment. Washington himself said that it would be folly to 
appoint to office an opponent of the Constitution as the Feder- 
alists understood it. 

In 1801, the Federalists lost control of the government by 
a small majority, and then went wild. In 1808 and again in 
1 81 4, at the Hartford Convention, surviving Federalism lost 

*See pp. 69, 276 et seq. 'Federal Constitution, Article VII. 

"Madison's Journal, July 25. 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 97 

its original doctrine and talked State's rights. In the middle 
years of its life Federalism tried to make a South Carolinan 
President, a political error, for Federalism was a theory for 
bankers and merchants, creditors, army and navy officers, large 
employers of hired labor, not for agricultural regions, and 
could not thrive in the South under its economic and social 
systems. When he consented to a Potomac site for the 
Capital,^ Hamilton helped to kill Federalism. But the suicide 
of the party was not completed without the Alien and Sedi- 
tions Acts, the New England factionalism and sectionalism, 
and finally the setting up of the social cult in Massachu- 
setts to the effect that "all gentlemen are Federalists." There 
and thereof and then. Federalism died.^ 

Democracy 

While Federalism was pursuing its suicidal course and van- 
ishing into a memory of the past, a dead hope proclaiming a 
nation's ingratitude while itself had become a sickly treason, 
Anti-Federalism was on its march to greatness. 

The two leaders of Federalism had been Hamilton, brilliant 
and bad, and Adams, energetic and good, but neither of them 
winning and tactful. Anti-Federalism had one major leader 
and one minor, both winning and tactful, Thomas Jefferson, 
brilliant and at heart good, and Aaron Burr, brilliant and bad. 

Strict Construction of the Constitution. — The Anti- 
Federalists took the view that the powers assigned to the 
National Government should be strictly construed while those 
reserved to the States should be loosely and liberally con- 
strued. The principle has been recognized for ages in the 
English common law. Criminal statutes are strictly construed, 
civil statutes are liberally construed. As the days of the 
Revolutionary War and of the period of imrest before 1787 
receded into the background, the home-love for the State 
brought to Anti-Federalism many a convert. But for the 
flare-up when Adams made Washington general of an army 
against France,^ the victory of Anti-Federalism over Federal- 
ism in 1 80 1 would have been overwhelming. Continued shrewd 

^See pp. 261-262, infra. ^See p. 309, infra. "See p. 249, in fro. 



98 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

and bold politics of this kind, and John Adams might have 
won his second term. 

Part of the strength of Thomas Jefferson as leader came 
from the fact that he had favored the ratification of the Con- 
stitution but had been away from the scene of conflict/ The 
term Anti-Federalism lost meaning after the defeat of Fed- 
eralism, and the far better, the positive, term Republican- 
Democratic came in, — indicating a commonwealth ruled by 
the people and for their welfare. Hitherto, the prevailing 
notion of organized society was that "the people" existea for 
the welfare of the privileged. In the Constitutional Conven- 
tion, the ablest men, such as Madison, Gouverneur Morris, 
Wilson, and Franklin, debated anxiously whether or not even 
the judges should not be given short terms, like the President 
and the members of Congress, and be made ineligible for re- 
appointment lest they should form the nation that the people 
exist for judges to judge. What constitutes a proper govern- 
ment in respect to the relations of the rulers and of the ruled 
was indeed the most frequent theme in that Convention — 
"Republicanism" was the answer of Thomas Jefferson to a 
decade of general public discussion. The spirit of this "Re- 
publicanism" forced the addition of the "bill of rights" amend- 
ments'^ to the Constitution. In 1801, the party won control 
of two branches of the Government, the executive and legis- 
lative. In so doing, it escaped giving the Presidency to Aaron 
Burr only because Hamilton hated his party associate more 
than his political opponent. Federalism, however, still con- 
trolled the courts, and in fact always has controlled the courts 
since the time of John Jay, the first Chief Justice. Judges, 
like all other persons, naturally seek aggrandizement of power. 
The first inaugural of Jefferson contains the "Republican" 
creed ; and is one of the most famous of all Presidential papers. 

Court and Country Parties. — Says John Adams, — "a 
court and a country party had always contended." Jefferson 
represented the country party. The terms were "court party," 
"aristocrats," "monarchists," "Anglicans," as over against 
"country party," "democrats," "republicans," "Galileans." 

*See p. 260, infra. 

'See p. 135, infra, and Constitution, Amendments I-X. 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 99 

By political power, wealth is seized and becomes property. 
To political power, all capital gravitates. By 1812, the capi- 
talistic, commercial and manufacturing classes were forced to 
go over to the dominant Republicanism. Save in spots, here 
and there, of ancestral Federalism, the whole nation became 
Republican. Moreover, rulers always seek to widen and to 
strengthen their authority. The official Republicans began to 
talk liberal construction of the Constitution. These two classes, 
the capitalists and the office-holders, naturally came together 
and organized a faction, called the National Republicans. Its 
titular head was J. Q. Adams. The others, really the descend- 
ants of the old "country party," by 1824 had a real head, 
Andrew Jackson. 

Two Lists of Presidents, Before and After Jackson. — 
These Democratic Republicans soon came to be known as 
Democrats. "The people," that is, the country people, ruled. 
The cit}'' and town population was still but a small percentage. 
In this epoch came the transfer of the election of the members 
of the Electoral College by the Legislatures to the popular 
vote. Thereafter, until 1876, Congress made no decisions as 
to the Presidency. 

Andrew Jackson marks the crisis of this change. In conse- 
quence, we have two lists of Presidents, — those who were the 
free choice of the Electors or of the Congressmen, and those 
who were the popular choices as between the nominees of party 
conventions. Politically, this revolution was of major im- 
portance. It gave us this contrast: 

George Washington Martin Van Buren 

John Adams William Henry Harrison 

Thomas Jefferson James Knox Polk 

James Madison Zachary Taylor 

James Monroe Franklin Pierce 

John Quincy Adams James Buchanan 

Andrew Jackson Abraham Lincoln, etc. 

It is not likely to be denied that in quality the Electoral 
College-Congress list is at least not inferior to the Party Con- 
vention list. Certainly, the Electoral College never would have 
freely chosen more than one — James Buchanan — of the first 
seVen members of the Party Convention list. This speculation 



loo HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

as to the issue of an alternative course has no other value than 
to suggest the limits of democracy in respect to the recall. If 
the President had been within power of a prompt recall, in all 
likelihood neither of the Adamses nor Madison nor Van Buren 
nor Buchanan nor Lincoln nor Cleveland nor Taft would have 
been allowed to finish out one term; and certainly not Tyler, 
or Johnson, who were never elected Presidents. 

The Party Convention. — ^We owe the party convention 
with its 500 or 1000 delegates to the same spirit of democracy 
that put Andrew Jackson into the cabin of the Captain and 
scraped so many "Federalist barnacles" off the old Ship of 
State. The first convention was the Anti-Masonic in 1830; 
the next the National Republican in 1831; and the third 
of importance, which was the first of the Democrats, in 1832. 
By this device, the "Electors" were converted into long-wired 
puppets pulled by party leaders and pulled at again by public 
opinion. 

Soon afterwards, sectionalism began to appear. Most of 
the National Republicans were in the North, most of the 
Democrats were in the South. Both became "minority" 
parties, for, owing to the development of schismatic factions, 
neither had a safe majority of the popular vote. 

Manhood Suffrage. — In this epoch, startling changes 
were made by many States, in the right of suffrage. In the 
earlier days, but one man in a dozen had the "liberty to vote," 
the franchise. Property and other qualifications were rapidly 
reduced or omitted by State Constitutional Revision Conven- 
tions, ratified by the people. Government, hitherto set as an 
overturned political truncated pyramid upon its head, was 
turned upside upon its broad base. 

Democracy now plunged downhill, in but two or three 
mighty jumps, to the lowest ditch of universal manhood suf- 
frage. The marvel is that government survived, for one who 
cannot think is not fit to vote for himself and the others, — in 
this epoch, for women and children. In truth, millions cannot 
yet think, cannot read human nature, cannot comprehend 
measures, cannot estimate values. 

With universal manhood suffrage came the demand for uni- 
versal education, — for boys that they might vote intelligently, 
for girls that they might be fit companions for and mothers 
of voters. This was very good — as an ideal, — but it was 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES loi 

incapable of realization, for two reasons, either of which is 
valid and sufficient : first, the subnormal and the abnormal, 
who are numerous, cannot be educated adequately ; and, second, 
the lords of wealth have never yet been willing to pay the 
bills really demanded by a sincerely operated universal educa- 
tion. In consequence, though government survived manhood 
suffrage (in a few States, limited by some requirements), it 
changed in its quality, manifesting this change in village, town 
and city, in country and State and nation. The total result 
was revolution. 

Social Revolution. — The new voting population was di- 
vided into parties and factions, with leaders and bosses neces- 
sitated by the ignorance of the rank-and-file. In i860, by 
adopting nationalism, the old Democracy perished by self- 
slaughter.^ Being the country party of the South, it inevitably 
reflected the nationalizing pro-slavery sentiments of the 
planters, sentiments as false to true democracy as secession in 
the days of the Hartford Convention was false to Federalism. 

National Republicanism. — The National Republican 
party had taken to itself the name of Whigs, a name high in 
favor in colonial and Revolutionary days. It was no longer 
"Republican," for it had endorsed the National Bank ideas 
of Federalism and had developed the tariff for protection ideas 
and the internal improvement ideas that properly fit a "court 
party." It also approved of paper currency, of free-and-easy 
large-scale monopolistic sales of public lands,^ and after the 
breakdown of "Biddle's Bank," of "wildcat State banks." It 
became the special organ of speculative business. 

In part. Democracy was true to its faith. Under Van Buren 
and Polk, it separated banking from government;^ it opposed 
internal improvements, based the currency upon value, and 
paid off the public debt. But in part it was false. This was 
not only in respect to slavery but also in respect to the distri- 
bution of the surplus^ to the States and to the patronage of a 
hundred or more special banks by grants of public deposits for 
private profit. 

Until 1856, Democracy strove with Whiggism and later with 
Republicanism for the control of government, and partly by 

*See pp. 423-424, infra. *See pp. 359, infra; 73, supra. 

'See pp. 361 and 386, infra. 



ro2 



HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 



"luck" and mainly by superior generalship was on the whole 
successful, as this conspectus shows: 



Van Buren 


Democrat 


4 years 




Harrison and 




I month 


Whig 


Tyler^ 


neither 


3 yrs. 1 1 mo. 




Polk 


Democrat 


4 years 




Taylor and 




4 years 


Whig 


Fillmore 






Whig 


Pierce 


Democrat 


4 years 




Buchanan 


Democrat 
Democrat 


4 years 
20 years 






4 yrs. I 



Slavery and Douglas. — Then the inner social forces burst. 
The political occasions were, first, the Kansas-Nebraska bill^ ; 
second, the Dred Scott decision*; and, third, secession.** 
Clearly, two parties and, obscurely, a third were formed out 
of the Democratic party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Pierce. 
Jefferson Davis headed one ; this asserted that the Constitution 
recognizes, and the National Government must protect, slavery 
in all the Territories. Stephen A. Douglas headed a second; 
this asserted that the inhabitants of a Territory might defeat 
slaveholding within its borders by "unfriendly legislation" and 
hostile public opinion. A third arose in i860, asking for the 
Union under the Constitution. The Republicans asserted that 
the first meant ultimately nation-wide slavery in all States and 
Territories; called the second "squatter sovereignty;" and 
ridiculed the third as the trick of the ostrich hiding its head in 
the sand and thinking itself safe. 

The target of the fighting in i860 was not Breckenridge or 
Lincoln or Bell but Douglas, who made one of the finest can- 
vasses in our political history. The Breckenridge party ( whose 
real leader was Jefferson Davis) meant to bring Douglas to 
defeat and to help Lincoln win in order to proceed to seces- 
sion — under color of necessity. They believed that Lincoln's 
government would not even fight; if he did fight, they gave 



*See p. 345, infra. 
"See pp. 372-373, infra. 



•See pp. 410, 415, supra. 
*See p. 417 et seq., infra. 



•See p. 424, infra. 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 103 

him thirty days to endure before catastrophe. They believed 
that New York State, as Governor Seymour said/ would join 
the South, and that the business men of the cities would never 
finance a real war against the secession States. 

CopPERHEADisM. — Dufing the War, the Douglas Democrats 
were nearly all Union men. In fact, Lincoln tried to get rid 
of the Republican name, and said that he was "a Union man" 
only. Most of the Constitutional Union^ men of the North 
became Unionists. But the Breckenridge voters, some Douglas 
men and some Bell men of the North turned Copperhead 
Democrats. For twenty years thereafter, wise Democrats in 
the North, — such was the social odium attaching to Copper- 
headism after Appomattox and the murder of Lincoln, — 
called themselves "Union" or "War-Democrats." 

The crimes of reconstruction, the corruption of Grant's ad- 
ministration, and the coming of millions of new voters from 
across the ocean by 1876 gave Democracy a new life. Bul- 
warked by a nearly restored "solid South," Tilden had more 
votes than Hayes ; he was in fact elected, but he was not con- 
stitutionally elected. The paper documents bound the living 
men of that eventful year. 

The Free Coinage of Silver. — The history of the Democ- 
racy since 1878 has been exciting. For twenty years, it evaded 
the silver question as did Republicanism. It has stood against 
the negro-rights amendments to the Constitution and by its 
State branches has effectively "nullified" them by methods 
subtle enough to please even Calhoun' and Jefferson.* It has 
favored economy of administration, civil service reform and a 
lower tariff. But in 1896 the West gained control and set the 
party against its sound-money traditions by pledging itself to 
the free coinage of silver.* Then gold-inflation came upon 
us, — such as had happened but twice before in world-history, — 
100 B. C. and 1500 A. D. New gold, — rising to $400,000,000, 
$425,000,000, $450,000,000 per annum, — so deluged the 
country with currency that silver inflation and Greenbackism 
became trifles in the face of prices that in only ten years rose 
52% for the necessaries of life, unsettling all values, easing 
the debtor classes, impoverishing wage-earners, and confusing 

^See pp. 462, 502, infra. 'See pp. 423, 424, infra. 

*See p. 337 et seq., infra. *See p. 284, infra. 

"See pp. 552-560, infra. 



I04 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

trade. For a year, there was a flurry of "Gold Democrats" ; 
but the cry of "anti-imperialism" brought th^ new faction back 
into the party fold. This cry is true democracy, which asserts 
that "all just governments derive their powers from the con- 
sent of the governed," as Jefferson phrased it. At the present 
time, most of the "radicals" and "new issues" men, most of 
those who appeal to the "masses" for support are Democrats. 
Since 1874, the Democratic party has had control of the House 
of Representatives (i) from 1874 to 1880, (2) from 1882 

to 1888, (3) from 1890 to 1894, and (4) from 191 1 to . 

Since i860, it has never controlled the Senate. It has elected 
one President twice, — Cleveland in 1884 and in 1892.^ It 
statistically elected Tilden in 1876. 

The Democratic party secured for us Louisiana, Florida, 
Texas, California, and Oregon, 

Americanizing the Foreigner. — To the Democratic party, 
we owe the Americanization of the foreigner. The capitalistic 
class, though eager to work him, has been perfectly content 
to leave him in ignorance. And to Democratic Presidents, we 
owe the efficient use of the veto, — ^Jackson,^ Tyler,^ Johnson,* 
and Cleveland.* The movement to elect Senators by popular 
vote, the income tax, reciprocity, and the Presidential primary 
are all essentially Democratic doctrines. 

It was in 1840 that the Democratic party introduced the 
innovation of a party platform. "Interrogating" a Presidential 
candidate by a letter to which he would reply publicly was a 
Democratic device. Obviously, the contributions of the 
Democracy to American history are far more numerous than 
those of any other party; unfortunately, the crime of the 
Mexican War, the measureless folly of armed secession and 
the excusable error of free silver must all be set to its debit 
account,' 

Anti-Masonry 

Both Democracy and Whiggism from 1830 to 1850 were 
really minority parties because of certain ephemeral parties. 
Of these, the first to appear was the Anti-Masonic. Upon the 

*See p. 532 et seq., infra. 

*See pp. 335, 345, infra. *See p. 48& 

•See p. 376. 'See p, 537. 

•For the crimes of Republicanism, see pp. 115-117, infra. 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 105 

disappearance of Morgan/ opposition to Masonry was under- 
taken in crusade-fashion by certain churches. The J. Q. 
Adams leaders in New York seized upon the movement to 
help their man. Jackson was high in Masonry. By 1824, 
Adams and Anti-Masonry Whiggism in New York had spread 
into New England, and was strong in Pennsylvania. The 
leaders advocated internal improvements and high tariff. They 
tried to get Clay to renounce Masonry and to head their 
party. 

In 1 83 1 they nominated William Wirt of Maryland, scholar 
and orator, for President and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania 
for Vice-President, hoping thereby to gain those States, but 
in 1832 they won only the seven electoral votes of Vermont. 
By 1836, the party was really dead, though as late as No- 
vember, 1838, it held a convention and named William Henry 
Harrison for President. "Anti-Masonry" meant nothing but 
factionalism. Wirt was himself a Mason, and defended 
Masonry in the Convention of 1831. But the party embar- 
rassed the Whigs by emphasizing their dogmas. Its early 
religious tone was a new phase of American politics.^ 

Whiggism 

After Napoleon broke down, Europe rested. There was 
thenceforth no need in America to advocate a strong central 
government to protect its independence. Federalism had fed 
upon this fear of a people. Democracy then won complete 
control. But after integration, there always follows disinte- 
gration, after solidarity factionalism, after homogeneity, 
heterogeneity. The universal "Republicanism" of 1820 could 
not last; the "era of good feeling" burst in the quarrels of 
Jackson, Crawford, Calhoun, Clay, and J. Q. Adams. About 
1828, the partisans of Clay and Adams began to call them- 
selves "National Republicans," and in 1834 they took the 
name "Whigs." They were a propagandistic association, — 
to make America great and rich and to teach to the world 
Americanism. Incidentally, they would resist the encroach- 
ments of the executive upon the legislative, — that is, of Jack- 
son as President upon the Whig Senate.* 

^See p. 342, infra. 'See pp. 120, 121, infra. 'See p. 345, infra. 



io6 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Clay and Webster. — The fame of Whiggism has endured 
because of the surpassing personahties of two Whig leaders. 
Clay and Webster. (They were personal friends borrowing 
at banks upon joint notes and splitting the proceeds. One 
such note is still unpaid — $500. ) Clay made his appeal to the 
business community in the forms of high tariff and of internal 
improvement; Webster added constitutional interpretation. 
The Whigs championed the Bank, fought for the "rights" of 
Congress, attacked and practiced the spoils system, and tried 
to quiet too noisy pro-slavery. When nullification roared in 
North Carolina, the Whigs went immediately to Jackson's 
support; that majestic soldier Winfield Scott who led the 
little army to Charleston was a Whig. They made the way 
of the nullifiers easy by suggesting the compromise tariff of 
1832.^ Most of them favored the gag-rule against J. Q. 
Adams in Congress.^ 

They were not faithful to their real leaders, Clay and 
Webster, but in 1836 and in 1840 nominated old W. H. Har- 
rison for President in order to win. They won, and he died. 
In their folly, they had sought votes by nominating John Tyler 
of Virginia as Vice-President. He was simply a Virginia 
Democrat who happened to hate Jackson. The golden apple 
of victory turned to dross in their hands. In 1844, Clay him- 
self by vacillation, due to a hunger to win, caused his own 
defeat. The Whigs opposed the war with Mexico but voted 
supplies. James Russell Lowell, the poet, called this "dough- 
face" style : his "Biglow Papers" were the protest of Puritan- 
ism against policy. 

In 1848, they elected Taylor, a slaveholder. President. It 
was one of the few good things they ever did. 

Compromise of 1850. — In 1850, they put through the "Com- 
promise Measures," which smashed their party. Most North- 
ern Whigs would not stand for the Fugitive Slave law. The 
party had sold out to the South. Whether their victory in 
postponing the Interstate War ten years was or was not worth 
while, — that is, whether or not Webster's "Seventh of March 
speech" was patriotism, — is a discussion over which scholars 
and historians will sharpen their wits for decades and perhaps 

^See p. 337, infra. »See pp. 318, 319, infra. 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 107 

for centuries. Had Taylor lived, the Compromise would have 
fallen through/ 

In 1852, the Whigs fell upon that mighty v^arrior Winfield 
Scott and tried to elect him President ; but the people did not 
desire him or his platform or his party. They chose outright 
Democracy and sincere proslavery. In a sense, Webster had 
perfectly convinced them that peace required surrender of 
abolition notions and sentiments as the price of economic pros- 
perity. The people had children to rear and taxes to pay, — 
and were not far-sighted. Unlike Sam Adams, they did not 
prefer a wilderness with liberty to a multitude with servitude.^ 
"The settlement [of 1850] in principle and in substance of 
the dangerous and exciting questions," to use Webster's plank 
in the party platform of 1852, lasted until 1854 when the 
Kansas-Nebraska bilP repealed the Missouri Compromise. 
The permanent "settlement" was but a delusion, a day-dream. 

Clay, spendthrift of speech, of money, of morals, was dead; 
Webster, sombre yet glorious, paid advocate of the business 
classes, was dead ; and Calhoun, mystic, seer and prophet, was 
dead. American politics woke to a new world. 

Webster had shouted in Fanueil Hall, Boston, "If the Whig 
party dies, where will I be ?" But the event came to pass that 
the world asked, "Since Webster is dead, where is the Whig 
party?" Dying, it had bequeathed the doctrine to the new 
Republicanism, — "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, 
now and forever." Webster had in truth made possible the 
triumph of the old Constitution in melting in that fervent heat 
and then cooling and casting "the indestructible union of in- 
destructible States," — a proud vaunt for changeable men. 

Incidentally, shifty Whiggism had taught one Whig the 
game of politics ; and he had character enough to play it with- 
out sacrificing too many principles, — he would work seeming 
miracles. This Whig was Abraham Lincoln, originally a Clay 
man, out of which he grew to be his own man, bigger than 
capitalism or labor either, having the whole nature cf hu- 
manity, not excepting its weaknesses. 

Liberty 
James G. Birney. — The first political party to oppose slav- 
*See pp. 399, 402, infra. "See p. 132, infra. "See pp. 419, 420, infra. 



io8 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

ery was the Liberty party, which found room to sprout in the 
openings between the Jackson and the Clay RepubHcanism in 
the early 30's of the nineteenth century. James G. Birney, a 
neighbor of Henry Clay, began to argue that the abolitionists 
should go into politics. In 1839, ^ convention was held in 
New York State and in 1840 another, which launched the 
Liberty Party and nominated Birney for President. They 
desired abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and 
a constitutional amendment removing slavery from the protec- 
tion of the National Government. But the eyes of men were 
blinded, and only 7000 voters could see. 

The certain annexation of Texas and the threatened Mexi- 
can War opened more eyes. In 1844, 63,000 votes were cast, 
with fatal effect upon Henry Clay's candidacy. '^ High tide 
came but three years later. The party became involved in 
scandals about the ballot, election frauds and local deals. When 
in 1848 the Democrats nominated Lewis Cass, and the Whigs, 
Taylor, the Liberty men of whom John P. Hale was the vigor- 
ous leader, joined all the other anti-slavery factions in the 
Free Soil movement. 

Free Soil 

The Free Soilers began with a more definite program than 
the Liberty men; they proposed to keep slavery out of the 
Territories. They came together from three sources,- — the 
Liberty party, the anti-slavery (anti- Webster) Whigs, and 
the Democratic Barnburners of New York State.^ In 1848, 
they nominated Martin Van Buren. Though they cast but 
292,000 votes, they elected two Senators and fourteen Repre- 
sentatives. In 1852, they nominated John P. Hale, and in 
their platform called slavery "a sin against God and a crime 
against man" ; but the Barnburners and Van Buren had de- 
serted. They had but 156,000 votes; and in 1556 went over 
en bloc to the Republican party. 

John P. Hale. — Hale was the first abolition member of 
Congress. In running fights at home, he managed to keep a 
constituency behind him for House or Senate for some twenty 
years. A delightful speaker, with a voice of great carrying 
power, and an agreeable companion, he was the necessary 

*See pp. 106, supra, and 383, infra. "See p. 366, infra. 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 109 

man to break the ice and yet not himself fall in and drown. 
J. Q. Adams with his war for the right of petition and J. P. 
Hale with his abolitionism were the bridge over which the 
future travelled from the complacent Missouri Compromise to 
the ardent days of the new Republicanism. 

Know Nothingism 

The Spread of Roman Catholicism. — The political 
scene, however, was troubled with still another party in the 
50's and 6o's. The Know Nothing or American party was 
an attempt to organize a national party out of various local 
city and town nativist parties. It was "America for the 
Americans : keep the Irish and the Germans out." With the 
new flooding immigration, Roman Catholicism came in, with 
its priesthood, confessional and ritual. This frightened many 
sincere persons who imagined that the Church had a definite 
political mission. The foreigners said many harsh but more 
foolish things about American institutions. In 1830-40, there 
were anti-Irish, anti-Catholic riots in some cities. Louisiana 
saw in 1841 the first State organization of the party. In 
1844, the nativists carried the city elections in New York and 
in 1845 '^^ Boston. In 1852, both Pierce and Scott had to say 
publicly that they were not anti-Catholic in sentiment. 

By this time, two secret orders had sprung up, — the "Order 
of United Americans" and the "Order of the Star- Spangled 
Banner," — and their members put new life into the movement 
for national organization. When asked what they were doing, 
they replied, "Don't know" ; hence their name. They attacked 
naturalization frauds and ballot-box stuffing. They had a 
program to exclude the aliens from the ballot, and their de- 
scendants also, unless they had been at the public schools a 
certain number of years. They opposed secretly all Catholic 
candidates of whatever party and became an immense power 
thereby. But they straddled the slavery question. In 1854, 
"Know Nothingism" ran like wildfire through the South, 
which had but few foreigners. In truth, however, could all 
foreigners have been kept out from 1854 to i860, the Union 
cause would have been lost in 1861-65 for want of soldiers! 

William H. Seward. — At this epoch, the Democratic 
leader, Douglas, and the Republican leader, Seward, both de- 



no HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

nounced Know Nothingism for evading publicity and the 
slavery issue. In 1856, the Know Nothings countered upon both 
Democrats and Republicans by naming former President Fill- 
more for the Presidency, but in vain. They had no strength 
save in the Border States, where they carried Maryland. In 
i860, most of the Know Nothings turned "Do Nothings," — 
became members of the Constitutional Union party. The 
Know Nothing hatred of Seward was potent in preventing his 
nomination by the Republicans. In that year, they lost control 
of their stronghold, Baltimore, where their rule had been 
corrupt and oppressive. 

Free Public Education. — Know Nothingism left one 
good result, — it put an end to the movement to give public 
moneys of government to denominational schools whether 
Catholic, Episcopal or Lutheran. Its spirit survives in the 
argument that since we protect the American manufacturer and 
his merchandise by shutting out foreign goods at the customs 
house, so also we should protect the American mechanic and 
his family by shutting out the foreign-born workman. To 
this argument, there is no sufficient answer save to challenge 
the validity of the premise. Certain secret societies still cherish 
Know Nothing hopes. 

A Triangle of Fates. — Shut in between the price-range, 
the wage-scale, and the standard of living, a bulwarked tri- 
angle of fates, the American laborer dreams of wages raised 
by excluding rivals for work. The dream is, of course, closely 
allied with the actual plans and methods of the trades unionists. 

Republicanism 

Its First Principles Achieved. — Three parties have 
borne the name "Republican." Jefferson founded the first, 
which became the Democratic party and still endures with 
much of Its early vigor. The second was the National Re- 
publican, which soon became known as the Whig party, and 
died from swallowing the Fugitive Slave Act. 

The present Republican party dates from 1854. It was 
founded to meet a temporary issue, — to prevent the extension 
of slavery into the territories. Its founders conceived "party" 
in a different spirit from prevalent political partisanship. 
According to Seward, Greeley, Hale, and Weed, party was 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES iii 

a temporary affair. They really hoped that the Republican 
party would soon be so successful as no longer to be necessary. 
By 1862, Lincoln thought that the Republican party had served 
its turn.^ Yet the party, however, has outlived its first pur- 
poses, which it accomplished, and some even of its later pur- 
poses; but by adopting new principles and policies, while re- 
taining its organization and machinery, has managed tO' last 
already through two entire generations and bids fair now to 
enter a third generation with a strength equal to that of its 
older rival, the Democratic. 

Had the Democratic party remained true to its real prin- 
ciple, — decentralization and localization of government,^ — if in 
the Dred Scott decision it had not invoked the power of the cen- 
tral government^ and thereby legislated through the judiciary in 
violation of the Constitution/ there never would have been any 
Republican party. But it is the history of all parties that sooner 
or later they violate their fundamental principles. The usual 
cause is victory. A less frequent cause is hope of victory. 
Parties, of course, are as human as are the men who manage 
them. Success sometimes deprives the party of its true reason 
for existence. Sometimes, success develops an arrogant indif- 
ference to essential principle. Sometimes, under defeat, a 
party hopes, or persuades itself that it hopes, to use victory, 
however secured, for the final triumph of its principle. 

Squatter Sovereignty. — The Kansas-Nebraska Act 
showed that the era of mutual concessions between the free- 
labor North and the slave-labor South was ended. "Squatter 
Sovereignty," fathered by Cass and reared by Douglas, denied 
to Congress the right to exclude slavery from the Territories. 
The North began to protest. The protests were loudest and 
most frequent in the West. Early in 1854, there was held at 
Ripon, Wisconsin, a mass-meeting that resolved that if the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill became law, "They would throw old 
party associations to the winds and organize a new party on 
the sole issue of the non-extension of slavery." There is no 
record as to the relative numbers of Whigs, Democrats and 
Free Soilers at this mass-meeting; but tradition reports thai 
a majority were Whigs who perhaps saw that their party had 

*See pp. 103, infra; 457, 458, supra. 

'See p. 97, supra. 'See pp. 410, 416, 417, infra. 

*See Article I, Section I. Also pp. 234, 302, infra. 



112 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

never represented living issues. Such Democrats as came 
must have done so from disagreement with the poHcies tem- 
porarily in control of the party organization. The Free Soilers 
saw in the new movement an opportunity to accomplish their 
purposes by abandoning their organization ; they were few in 
numbers but influential. 

When the Kansas- Nebraska bill became law, these dissat- 
isfied citizens, greatly increased in numbers, held a convention, 
July 6, 1854, at Jackson, Michigan, when they formally or- 
ganized the Republican party. In the same months, in other 
sections of the West, similar conventions were held, and the 
Republican party was widely established. These Republicans 
held two main doctrines, — slavery must not be allowed to 
widen its area, and government needs to be strong. The 
second doctrine was not the old Federalism, for this new Re- 
publicanism accepted fully the democratic method, including 
universal manhood suffrage and majority rule in party con- 
ventions. In 1854, it was far more democratic than Democ- 
racy itself. This Republicanism was in spirit and in method 
Jacksonism; but it was also to pursue the notions of Hamilton, 
of Clay, and of Webster in respect to specific propositions. It 
was like a new plant whose forerunners could be identified, — 
a hybrid and yet essentially individual in its characteristics. 

Lyceums. — The leaders were John P. Hale, William H. 
Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, 
Henry Ward Beecher, and Abraham Lincoln. It employed 
pulpit, platform, press and the lyceum for public agitation. 
Republicanism was a moral and an intellectual movement, 
using political means. Whiggism had been economic, like 
Federalism before it. 

The Ostend Manifesto. — Events conspired for the rapid 
spread of Republicanism. In 1856, Charles Sumner, a dis- 
agreeable and in some respects corrupt politician, though an 
orator, was brutally assaulted and almost killed by Preston 
Brooks, a South Carolina Representative, who attacked him 
defenceless in his seat in the Senate Chamber and beat him 
with a heavy cane so that for years he was an invalid. The 
Ostend Manifesto^ disclosed the purpose of the Southern slave- 
holders to take Cuba for a slave-labor domain, which would 
have saved her from the horrors of civil war, and ourselves 
from imperialism. The long quarrel between Douglas and the 

*See p. 41S, infra. 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 113 

Presidents over squatter sovereignty helped. The Fugitive 
Slave Act helped. The Dred Scott decision helped. 

It is a question whether the raid of John Brown at Harper's 
Ferry promoted or delayed the progress of Republicanism. It 
was a lurid beacon light in the black night. It warned all, 
but it frightened some and angered others. It frightened 
those who are always for peace, — who did not believe in the 
coming "irrepressible conflict." It angered those who be- 
lieved that legislation would solve the problem before the con- 
flict became one of arms and of bloodshed. 

In 1856, when the party named John C. Fremont for the 
Presidency, it adopted a platform containing a plank of per- 
fect explicitness, — it was "both the right and the duty of 
Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of 
barbarism, polygamy and slavery." The association of those 
two evils, Mormonism, founded in ignorance, superstition and 
lust, and slavery, founded in greed, pride and oppression, was 
ominous. 

The platform, however, did not end with moral issues. It 
asked for a Pacific railroad subsidy in order to connect Cali- 
fornia and Oregon with the East, and for improvement of 
rivers and harbors at national cost. 

In i860, the platform included a call for a national home- 
stead act for the distribution of the public lands to actual set- 
tlers, and for a protective tariff. It assailed the Dred Scott 
decision and thereby rejected the dogma that the courts are 
sacrosanct, a dogma of cardinal importance in the creed of 
vested rights. 

The Republicans did not defeat the Democrats in i860; 
but the Democracy broke into parts, and the Republicans de- 
feated each part. 

Federal Coercion of States. — When, after the election 
of Abraham Lincoln, President Buchanan asserted that the 
National Government had no right to coerce a State, the Re- 
publican party, in order to save for itself a nation to govern, 
was forced to drop the issue of the slavery-in-the-Territories 
and also the issue of the Fugitive Slave Act and to assert that 
the paramount consideration was saving the Union, — ^the faith 
of Daniel Webster. From henceforth, it was to be more 
Federalist than old Republican, more Whig than Democrat, 
and to be distinctly Free Soil. Lincoln tried to solidify the 



•ii4 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

North against the South, — it was to him a painful situation. 
But with one section of States, he must defeat the other in 
order to restore the nation. He was never blind to the fact 
that an actual national government was established and in 
working order against his national government. The seces- 
sionists were more than rebels ; they were patriots and nation- 
builders. 

Abraham Lincoln. — "My paramount object," said Abra- 
ham Lincoln in his letter to Horace Greeley, "is to save the 
Union and not either to save or destroy slavery."^ But in 
order to save the Union, he found it expedient to destroy 
slavery wherever the Union armies prevailed. In its third 
national convention early in June, 1864, the party said in the 
platform : "As slavery was the cause and now constitutes the 
strength of this rebellion, justice and national safety demand 
its utter extirpation from the soil of the republic." The exi- 
gencies of war had taught Northern politicians and people 
alike that the abolitionists were right. 

Legal Tender Money. — To support the war, the Repub- 
lican Congress adopted many measures. Among these was 
the Legal Tender Act, based upon the principle of fiat money. 
In sixty years, since then, we have not yet undone the mischief 
of that act, which inflated the currency, raised prices, and 
overstimulated business. Another was the establishment of 
National Banks, in all over 2000 in number, almost totally 
doing away with State banks. 

The requirements for National Bank charters have fostered 
the growth of cities by centering money deposits in them, — 
a most unfortunate thing for a people. 

Banks Founded on Debts, Not Assets. — Unfortunately, 
the system requires a national debt, and after we had reduced 
the debt from $3,000,000,000 to $1,000,000,000, the bankers 
became a bulwark against the progress to complete extinction 
of the indebtedness. To them, the debt became an asset. The 
sophistical argument of old Europe has reappeared that a 
national debt creates a class of creditors interested in the per- 
manence of government and, therefore, tends to the peace and 
security of the existing social order. These creditors, being 
pensioned as it were with the interest upon their bonds and 
often being relieved from daily toil, give their leisure lives to 
the promotion of patriotism, art, philanthropy, the general 

^See p. 456, infra. 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 115 

welfare. On this theory, we are now paying out some $40,- 
000,000 annually to maintain a class who perforce must sup- 
port the government. The $156,000,000 that we pay to war 
and peace veterans of the army and navy may likewise be re- 
garded as a bribe to patriotism. From another point of view, 
these annual expenditures may be regarded as discharging 
simple business obligations. 

Draining Money from the South. — The whole land pays 
pensions ; but the South receives back not one-tenth as much of 
the pension-money as it pays in. (Congressional Record, 
March 30, 1912.) The whole land pays interest on the national 
debt, which is owned almost exclusively in the North. Nearly 
all the alleged "benefits" of the tariff go into Northern pockets. 
South and West pay the great dividends of our railroads into 
Eastern banks. 

City and Farm. — The political defence of the excessive 
Republican tariffs is that they have enabled manufacturers to 
employ labor and thereby have broadened the market for 
labor. This contention is true; and of necessity broadening 
the market tends to raise the price of labor, that is, wages. But 
the manufacturers cannot defeat the biologic law of cities 
which their workshops build. By this law, city populations 
fail to reproduce themselves. Through all history, the third 
and fourth generations tell the story. The average eight adults 
who live in cities do not have eight great-grandchildren. Many 
do not marry; and the city-born who do marry do not have 
large families. Therefore, the highly protected manufacturers 
have been compelled to draw upon the American rural dis- 
tricts and upon the European country-folk and villagers for 
laborers. Our great industrial and commercial cities have de- 
pleted our farms and raised the prices of farm products ; and 
at the same time, their populations are mostly foreign-born or 
children of the foreign-born. 

Still another measure was the Homestead Act, wholly useful. 
Another was the act providing for a Pacific Railroad. The 
last to be noted is the law for suspending the Habeas Corpus 
Act, thereby curtailing personal liberty and strengthening the 
central Government. The railroad laws led to scandals, and 
the curtailment of personal liberty, — to abuse the government, — 
led to ferocious partisan outbreaks; but history has justified 
both of them. 



ii6 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

Reconstruction. — By the act of July 4, 1864, Congress 
maliciously and unconstitutionally took out of the hands of 
the executive and lodged in the legislative the business of recon- 
structing the South. Both Lincoln and Johnson, his successor, 
intended to allow the former Secessionist leaders to return to 
Congress and to the control of their own States. These leaders 
set about establishing police regulations that came near to 
putting the freedmen back into bondage. This gave to the 
Republican radicals their argument for control. Charles 
Sumner, at length restored to a measure of health,^ and Thad- 
deus Stevens, both attorneys for Northern capitalism, cared 
more for the Southern negroes than for the Southern whites, 
— the one was strong in the Senate, the other dominated the 
House. President Johnson vetoed the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution, which guaranteed civil rights to the 
freedmen; but the Republican party, now led by the "Black 
Republicans," passed it over his veto, and the Legislatures 
ratified it. In 1868, by impeachment, they tried to reduce the 
Presidency to the rank of Congressional chief clerkship. 

Republican reconstruction of the South by Congress set the 
freedmen over their former masters, developed corrupt, waste- 
ful, oppressive and inefficient governments, caused the white 
reaction of the Ku Klux Klan and alienation of the whites 
and of the colored. It failed, because the whites got control 
of their States and now hold it. In short, Lincoln was right. 
The South by indirection and by violence had accomplished 
what he foresaw was inevitable and necessary and, therefore, 
expedient. And Republicanism had become known below 
Mason and Dixon's line as the party of the Northern "carpet- 
bagger" and "bluebelly" and of the Southern colored f reed- 
man and his companion, the white Southern "scalawag." 
Thereby, the reunion in sentiment of the North and of the 
South was delayed until the days of the Spanish War. 

Liberal Republicans. — Moreover, the party and the gov- 
ernment in the days of Johnson and of Grant fell into the 
hands of corruptionists and of spoilsmen, both dishonest and 
incompetent. There followed the split of the Liberal Repub- 
licans, led by Horace Greeley, whom the Democratic party en- 
dorsed for the Presidency. 

In 1876, in 1884, and in 1892, the Republicans were de- 
feated in their nominations for the Presidency; and the 

*Sce p. 112, supra. 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 117 

reasons were many. Among these were the rise of Green- 
backism/ disgust over the criminal fiasco of reconstruction, 
dissatisfaction with the outcome of high protection in that 
while it seemed to make the manufacturers rich, prices rose 
and wages though rising did not rise" correspondingly, but only 
one-third or one-quarter as much, and the development not 
only of several minor parties but also of a large number of 
independents, often styled "Mugwumps." 

Factionalism. — The two great parties were not clearly set 
m opposition. Both professed to favor civil service reform. 
Both hedged upon the silver question. They refused to take 
issue on these matters and on the foreign policy of the nation. 
There was much talk of election frauds North and South, and 
the evidence seemed to support the charges. Internally, the 
Republican party was split with Stalwarts on one side and 
Half breeds upon the other. The split originated in New York 
State, but was felt everywhere. 

A Difficult Role. — In 1892, the Republicans became the 
conservatives, the Democrats the radicals, thus reversing the 
positions taken in 1856. Republicanism became the gold 
standard party as well as the high protective tariff party. In 
1898, it found itself forced Into the position of supporting ter- 
ritorial expansion and imperialism. And It became the advo- 
cate of the conservation of the natural resources of coal, of 
timber, and of the metals. At the same time, It included 
many reformers, seeking to cleanse business and government 
of corruption. Thenceforth, it was to play a most difficult 
role, — advocating International greatness, economic develop- 
ment, and the moral improvement of politics and of business. 
In 1897, the highly protective Dingley tariff was enacted, — 
in 1909, the still higher Payne- Aldrlch tariff. In 191 1, it found 
itself Illoglcally advocating reciprocity with the vast Dominion 
of Canada, which was defeated there. 

Insurgency. — Beyond any other historical party, the Re- 
publicans have been efficient In government. But in politics 
their technical position has become extremely difficult, as evi- 
denced by the rise of a group known as "Insurgents" or "Pro- 
gressives." Their first leader. Senator J. P. Dolllver of Iowa, 
died suddenly in 1910, an event of major political importance 
in that it set back a movement that might have resulted In the 
rise of a new party with prospects of Immediate success. Their 

^SSe p. 118 et seq. 



ii8 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

next leader, Senator Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin, was 
less likely to split Republicanism; but in 1912, he was displaced 
by their present leader, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, President 
from 1 901 to 1909, who brought the party into two divisions 
of almost equal size and prestige. 

Greenbackism 

Peter Cooper. — Fiat money came in with the needs of the 
nation in 1862. It was a paper currency printed upon one 
side in green, and consisted simply of a promise to pay. In 
other words, greenbacks are forced loans from the people to 
the Government. When on January i, 1879, under John 
Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, specie payment was re- 
sumed, there were outstanding $346,681,000 in these "green- 
back" notes. This amount has never been reduced. In truth, 
it constitutes an addition to the National Debt, an addition, 
however, that does not pay interest. It serves, however, per- 
fectly to raise all American prices about 25 per cent, higher 
than prices in Europe where fiat money is considered 
criminal. 

In 1876, a party appeared that advocated more fiat money. 
The gold and silver certificates require deposits of gold and 
silver. They constitute "intrinsic currency of ultimate re- 
demption"; but they are costly. Paper fiat money requires 
only rags, type, printing press and ink. The Greenbackers 
asserted that the immense prosperity of the North was due 
to the inflation of the currency. They failed to see that the 
Confederacy, also issuing fiat money, did not have similar 
prosperity, and mistook "after" for "because of." 

In that first year, no less a man that Peter Cooper of New 
York, inventor, financier and philanthropist, ran for President 
as the Greenback candidate, receiving 82,000 votes, mostly, 
however, from persons who thought that he was morally 
better than Hayes or Tilden. In 1878, the party cast 1,000,000 
votes and elected 14 Congressmen. In 1880, it cast, for a 
fusion ticket of the Greenbackers and labor reformers, 309,000 
votes, and elected 8 Congressmen. The Presidential candi- 
date was J. B. Weaver of Iowa. In 1884, the candidate was 
General Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, — lawyer, army 
leader, cotton manufacturer, politician, gravely suspected of 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 119 

cotton frauds at New Orleans/ and commonly considered a 
demagogue. He received 175,000 votes. 

And then Greenbackism died. Its voters became mostly 
Free Silver Democrats or Socialists. But in American busi- 
ness men, enough of the spirit of Greenbackism lives after 
death to keep the Government from retiring the fiat legal 
tender money of the War period. The real essence of the 
movement consists in a desire to promote business ventures 
and to ease the life of the poor : It aims to make people rich by 
a government device. 

Prohibitionism 

To Make Men Good by Law. — Far more significant and 
extensive than any other of the present minor parties now is 
the Prohibition Party, which has taken a moral principle into 
politics. 

The Prohibitonists aim to make men good by law, and to 
destroy poverty by doing away with the consumption of alco- 
holic liquors. They are the politicians of the American tem- 
perance movement. In the nation, they have not yet proven 
of importance; but in the States, they have, in many instances, 
won State-wide prohibition of liquor-making and of liquor- 
selling, and in yet more instances, secured county and city- 
option. They have forced the old parties to abolish the army- 
canteen and the public schools to give instruction as to the 
evil effects of alcohol and of tobacco. Socially, they have 
made drunkenness a crime and hard drinking "bad form." 

A Two-Party Nation. — But though the Prohibition Party 
has adopted many planks in their platforms, they have not 
yet forced either of the great parties to issues. We have been 
characteristically a two-party nation, not a nation of three 
parties or of many factions. And it does not appear probable 
that the immediate future will see a change. The American 
people seem to consider temperance and prohibition among 
those ethical and educational movements which do not prop- 
erly belong to national politics. Moreover, the large cities are 
pro-saloon and anti-temperance, while the towns and rural 
districts of the North are usually indifferent, while those of 
the South are pro-temperance and anti-saloon. Two powerful 
influences leading the South to Prohibition are a justifiable 
fear of the effects of cheap and easily accessible intoxicants 

*See pp. 503, 504, infra. 



I20 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 

upon negroes, and the absence of Republicans. Democracy 
and Prohibition in the South are not in conflict; but Prohi- 
bition is an interesting minor diversion from the complete 
dominance there of Democracy. In 191 1, Socialism became 
another diversion. 

Ethical Influences. — Prohibitionism elects no Congress- 
men, and has no reasonable hope of the Presidency; but at 
all times, it exerts potent influence upon State and local elec- 
tions. So general is the support of prohibition by the clergy 
and by the churches of all denominations that pressing it to a 
political issue as a national scale seems un-American in that 
it unites government and religion, Church and State. 

The Prohibitionists have now had greater or less State-wide 
success in nine States, — Maine, North Carolina, Georgia, Ten- 
nessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, Oklohama, and North 
Dakota. Other States that tried prohibition only to give it up 
are Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, and South 
Dakota. It cannot be said, however, that it was very seri- 
ously tried in these six States. Nor can it be proven that State 
prohibition has markedly decreased poverty. 

Populism 

William Jennings Bryan. — The Greenback party rose 
solely upon a financial principle; the Prohibitionist upon an 
ethical. Similarly, the Populist party arose upon a single 
principle, — direct utilization of government to promote the 
general wealth and thereby the wealth of individuals, espe- 
cially farmers. It was a sectional movement, beginning with 
the Grangers of the Middle West and spreading into the 
South. Populism was a great wave that placed one Senator 
from Kansas in Washington, and then subsided rapidly. In 
1896, Populism endorsed the Democrat W. J. Bryan for the 
Presidency. 

In the hope of catching as many voters as possible, the 
Populist party platforms soon had many planks ; but this mul- 
tifariousness of propositions drove away more voters than 
it won. Old parties may resort to such a device; but the 
strength of a new party consists in simplicity of issues. 

Populism at its height was State Socialism, and as such pre- 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES 121 

pared the way in American politics for the first and only party 
in this country with international affiliations. 

Socialism 

Social Democratic Party. — There have been, in Ameri- 
can history, several parties of Socialistic tendency, — the Social 
Democratic, the Social Labor, and the Populist, — all prepar- 
ing the way for the Socialist party^ which in 1 910 by electing 
a Congressman (from Milwaukee, Wisconsin) fairly entered 
the national field. 

Socialism aims at economic revolution and social recon- 
struction, employing political methods for these ends. It 
nominates candidates for National, State and municipal office. 
Some forty cities have elected Socialists mayors. But at 
present, Socialism is a party of propaganda rather than of 
achievement of national importance. It styles the existing 
social regime "capitalism and wage-slavery" and advocates 
class-consciousness on the part of all toilers for hire. It sup- 
ports and is partly supported by trades unionism. The main 
Socialistic principle is, "Workingmen of the world, unite." 

Socialism has two styles, — State socialism and collective 
socialism. The former is advocated for all public utilities and 
natural monopolies, the latter for everything else. It demands 
for each family a home with land. In a sense, Socialism is 
democratic; it aims to produce free men with equal political 
rights. In another sense, it is highly nationalistic beyond even 
Republicanism. It is, however, essentially municipal and local 
in its present activities. Owing to the appeal of Socialism, 
under various names and guises, to men and women of reli- 
gious and esthetic natures, to its advocacy of woman suffrage, 
and to its zealous humanitarianism, it receives a degree and a 
measure of attention notably above and beyond its practical 
accomplishment. 

Supersocialism known ias "Syndicalism" aims to unite all 
workers, and with its principle "No arbitration" to expropriate 
all wealth from private ownership into the communistic pos- 
session of the present wage-earners. 



122 HISTORY OF PRESIDENCY 



Individual Freedom Through Politics 

Individual Freedom. — We may perhaps successively rank 
these and allied movements as they exist to-day in the terms 
of individual freedom thus : 

Philosophical Anarchy, with the largest freedom. 

Constitutional Democracy. 

Collective Socialism. 

Progressive Democracy. 

Insurgent Republicanism. 

Social Democracy. 

Standpat Republicanism. 

Prohibitionism. 

Populism. 

State Socialism. 

Communism, with the least freedom. 

The problem involved is : "How far in order to promote 
the welfare of a nation or of a community may we interfere 
with individual freedom?" How much true liberty is due to 
law? How far do existing laws work for special privilege 
and class rule ? The court party is now for enlarged govern- 
ment powers, the country party for less law and better law 
and for more freedom of the individual. 

Only in the light of this principle has the progressive move- 
ment any historical and permanent importance. 

Constitutional Freedom 

Part and parcel of individual " freedom is constitutional 
order, which is probably as near to justice as mankind will at 
least for a considerable time attain. Here, and not in mere 
political expediency, lies the question as to whether or not to 
recall legislators, executives and judges, and as to whether or 
not to make them ineligible to reelection. In which connec- 
tion, it is well to note that a man sometimes is indispensable. 
If Lincoln could not have been reelected, either the Interstate 
War would have resulted differently or in violation of the 



HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES ,123 

Constitution the North would have found a way to make him 
dictator. 

For in human society an individual may become the embodi- 
ment of the social will, the instrument of its adjustment of 
institutions to changing forces and needs. 



PART TWO 
PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 



"He is to be President of all the People, not of the States."— James 
Madison, Records of the Federal Convention, August 26, 1787. 



CHAPTER I 
Origin of the Presidential Character 

Some Forerunners of the Presidents: (i) Samuel Adams, 
(2) Patrick Henry, (3) John Hancock, (4) Benjamin 
Franklin, 

Samuel Adams 

The interregnum between King and President — master o£ Boston town- 
meeting — other prominent figures — early life — family vicissitudes — 
fortunate first marriage — Stamp Act — Governor Thomas Hutchinson 
— the Boston Tea Party — in Philadelphia, 1774 — General Gage hunts 
Sam Adams at Lexington — second wife confesses poverty — personal 
peculiarities — services of Adams compared with those of others — 
Massachusetts State Constitution — a democrat and localist — loses his 
son — the Bill of Rights Amendments — State Governor in 1794 — a 
King-maker — Patrick Henry compared with James Otis — early life — 
reads law — the Parsons' Cause — "Treason !" — "Give me liberty or give 
me death!" Governor of Virginia — opposes Federal Constitution — ill 
health — declines Chief Justiceship — compared with others — an Ameri- 
can — John Hancock — early life — wealth — smuggling — the sloop "Lib- 
erty" — affairs with Sam and John Adams — an able business man and a 
good politician — President of Congress in 1776— compared with later 
rich men — Governor of Massachusetts — State's Rights — an aristocrat 
and a patriot — Benjamin Franklin — humble origin — early life — printer 
— goes from Boston to Philadelphia — very active — colonial postmaster 
in 1753 — visits London — scientific discoveries — pamphleteer — colonial 
agent in England — diplomat in Canada — member of Congress and 
President Pennsylvania State Constitutional Convention — a genius 
with many faults — goes to Paris — a prodigious worker — peace commis- 
sioner — member Federal Constitutional Convention — ablest of all 
Americans to date — his singular and attractive yet effective personal 
appearance — a State's Rights democrat, yet favored a strong, limited, 
central government. 

The Origin of the Public Idea of the President. — To 
four men we owe the Presidential character. The ideal Presi- 
dent is a competent international diplomat, he is a masterful 
politician, he is a fascinating orator, and he is an industrious 

127 



128 



PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 



and respectable public functionary. Four men fixed the type. 
A President is in character when he reminds us of Benjamin 
Franklin as an energetic yet tactful, honest and unselfish direc- 
tor of international affairs, of Samuel Adams as a frank and 
successful manipulator of us his fellow democrats, admiring 
and obedient, of Patrick Henry as an eloquent and patriotic 
orator, telling us dramatically, brilliantly, gloriously our needs, 
and of John Hancock, the suave, laborious, skillful yet not 
anxious presiding executive of our destiny. Were such a 
President to add in wartime, the bravery and fortitude of 
George Washington and his foresight, he would be more than 
ideal ; he would be perfect, which no man ever is, or ever will 
be. The Presidents who fail, fail in some one or more of 
these several good qualities of their forerunners. 

The Interregnum Between King and President. — 
Between the days when the British colonies in North America 
were loyal at heart to their hereditary Sovereign Lord, King 
George the Third, and the days when the new nation of the 
United States elected for themselves as President of the People 
one George Washington, there was an interregnum of a 
score or more of years. Then there was neither king nor 
judge in our Israel ; and much of the time, most of our ances- 
tors were severally doing each what was right in his own 
eyes. But in that interregnum between King and President 
several strong figures stood out, usually compelling obedience 
and even admiration from the aggressive and finally effective 
minority that set up this representative Republic, — conspicu- 
ously among them stood Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, 
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock. 
By their policies, their characters and their conduct, they 
shaped the future Presidency. 

Master of Boston Town-Meeting. — In 1774, the first 
Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, the harvest of the 
sowing of Samuel Adams, "the Father of the Revolution." 
He had begun the Revolution with his ringing protests against 
the Stamp Act and pursued it with Committees of Corres- 
pondence ; and now the Colonies, like independent tribes, were 
seeking that unity of mind whence independence and national- 
ity in a common cause were to emerge. 

In the year 1 774, the most prominent politician in America 
was Sam Adams, master of Boston town-meeting, boldest of 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 129 

all the rebels-in-making upon the western shores of the 
Atlantic. 

Various Prominent Figures. — Colonial union for resist- 
ance did not stir in men's minds until 1773 when the Inter- 
colonial or Continental Committees of Correspondence, whose 
prototype was the Massachusetts colony-system of intertown 
Committees of Correspondence, had become sufficiently or- 
ganized under Dabney Carr, Patrick Henry his brother-in- 
law, and others of Virginia to press for a congress at Phila- 
delphia, the largest city of America. From 1773 to 1789 is 
a period of sixteen years. During the first four of those 
years, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Hancock were 
the great political figures at home. The diplomatic triumphs 
of Benjamin Franklin in France made him the great figure 
after the French treaty in February, 1782. 

Other great men than Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, John 
Hancock, and Ben Franklin, there were : among them, Robert 
Morris, Gouverneur Morris, James Otis, George Mason, Rich- 
ard Henry Lee, to mention a few. Against every other man 
than Adams, Henry, Hancock, and Franklin, something 
serious militated to their political disadvantage. Some came 
from colonies overrun with British soldiers, others from 
colonies that were hotbeds of Loyalism and Toryism, so that 
they had no opportunity to develop general views ; some were 
too old for the fray, some still too young; destined later for 
high fame, one became^ according to the medical knowledge 
of that day, insane, the brilliant Otis ; some were killed in 
battle or otherwise disabled ; others were too poor and friend- 
less, in an age when no salaries were paid to public officers, to 
bear a hand long in politics ; and some wavered. 

These four men were the forerunners of the Presidents. 
They had wealth enough, health enough, friends enough, 
strength enough to endure. 

Early Life. — Sturdy Samuel Adams, type of New Eng- 
land hardihood, was born in Boston, September 2^, 1722. 

On a memorable spring day, 1773, in Fanueil Hall, he 
rose and said : "This meeting can do no more to save the 
country," — whereupon certain "Indian braves" adjourned to 
the wharf, and to save the business of smuggling tea, stole one 
hundred thousand dollars worth of almost tax-free tea and 
poured it into Boston harbor. Yet Parliament was chargfing 



130 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

us but one-tenth as much tax as the English were paying. The 
smugglers wished America charged the full tax, — in order to 
make their profit, and by law-breaking to break the English 
monopoly. Mixed purposes of good and evil operate history. 

To Sam Adams, fifty years of age, the generosity of King 
George was poorly disguised malice. 

Family Vicissitudes, — Though a Harvard master of arts, 
winning the degree at the age of twenty years — a fact that in- 
dicates to the discerning that college degrees were easier come 
at in 1743 than now — he did not proceed into a profession but 
after reading a little law became a merchant's clerk, then a 
merchant on his own account and, last in business lines, a 
maltster. He came of a family already famous and living in 
a fine mansion ; but those were troublous times, and the family 
knew many vicissitudes. Perhaps, the deaths of nine of the 
twelve children in his father's family should be considered 
significant of the storm-and-stress of those days of English 
war with France. 

Fortunate First Marriage. — Samuel Adams married 
well. His bride was a daughter of the minister of New South 
Church. This was in an age when the ministers were the first 
men in Boston. The marriage took place in 1749; and it is 
significant of the young man in Boston politics that older men 
began to advise him to talk less about government and to 
write fewer letters to the newspapers and to attend to his none 
too prosperous malt-house. It appears that the elder Adams, 
dying, had left to this son not only a legacy of a few thousand 
dollars but another legacy, — a feud with no less a personage 
than Thomas Hutchinson, destined to be the first man on the 
King's side. Ten years after his father's death, the enemies 
of the Adams family tried to saddle a prodigious and legally 
problematical debt upon his son Samuel, — in order presumably 
to quiet his political activities. It is a trick played yet. 

By 1753, young Adams was on the Boston School Com- 
mittee ; from this he rose, — as they say, — step by step until he 
became representative in the Assembly of the colony and tax- 
collector, — ^holding the latter office from 1756 to 1764. Massa- 
chusetts was in a constant row between the royal governors 
and their satellites and the free men of the town-nieeting. 
Lying: and scandal were in the air. Corruption was the custom 
ot tne timcL. 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 131 

The Stamp Act brought the crisis. 

The Stamp Act. — Adams was already gray and for all his 
sturdy frame, looked old. His wife was dead, two children 
surviving. His business was gone; and but little property 
remained. Yet his career had not begun! 

Sam Adams was to become the tribune of the people. That 
flame of fire, Colonel James Otis, might pass, but Adams was 
to burn and glow for many and many a year to come. In 
1764, seven years after his first wife passed away, Adams 
married again. It was a childless union, but his second wife 
survived him. 

From 1765, Sam Adams held till his death some office that 
kept him in the Old State House of Massachusetts. The only 
considerable break was the period of his service in the Conti- 
nental Congress. In the Assembly in 1766, he was joined by 
that rich young blood, John Hancock, then but twenty-nine 
years old. Massachusetts forced the repeal of the Stamp Act. 
The British Parliament could not yet answer the Adams argu- 
ment,— We are too far away to be represented; and since 
there must be no taxation without representation, we must not 
be taxed save by ourselves. 

Governor Thomas Hutchinson. — In 1768, Thomas 
Hutchinson, a brilliant lawyer, for years Chief Justice and 
now Lieutenant-Governor, became Acting Governor; and two 
years later Governor, at the age then of fifty-nine. His chief 
opponent was Sam Adams, clerk of the Assembly, whose sole 
means of support was the petty stipend of what he made a 
great office by his diligence and talent. 

Bustling about the streets of Boston, with his wife and 
children virtually in poverty, Adams becomes in a sense an 
American Socrates, the wholly public man. He loved conver- 
sation in the streets. 

Such was the man who, as officially appointed spokesman 
of Boston town-meeting after the "Boston Massacre," visited 
Hutchinson the Royal Governor and like a prophet of old 
ordered him to withdraw the regiments. "Fail not at your 
peril," he cried, his head and hands shaking with the nervous 
tremor that characterized him for the last forty years of his 
life, "to comply with this requisition. If the just expectations 
of the people are disappointed, you must be answerable to God 
and your country for the fatal consequences that must ensue." 



132 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

After the Boston Tea Party. — After the Tea Party, 
Sam Adams must be got ready to go to Philadelphia: his 
friends and neighbors present him with a suit of clothes, a 
new wig and hat and six pairs of silk hose, six pairs of shoes, 
and a few gold coins. The man has no time to be looking out 
for himself. He must be about his country's business ! And 
just enough friends and neighbors are at hand to get him 
ready for this business. So assisted, in company with certain 
others of larger means, Adams must travel to Philadelphia, 
in a coach and four, with two white servants on horseback 
armed and four negro slaves in attendance, for Boston still 
has slaves. 

In Philadelphia in 1774. — In that Congress of fifty-three 
members, the Tories said that Sam Adams was the ablest 
manager of men. One of the conciliationists wrote of him: 
"He eats little, drinks little, sleeps little, thinks much, and is 
most decisive and indefatigable in the pursuit of his objects. 
Whatever these patriots wished to have done. . . . Mr. 
Adams advised and directed." It is the valuable testimony of 
an enemy. Adams declared that he was for the struggle for 
liberty though nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand 
perished. "One freeman must possess more virtue and enjoy 
more happiness than a thousand slaves ; and let him propagate 
his like, and transmit to them what he hath so nobly pre- 
served." 

The Hunt for Sam Adams. — Small wonder that next 
spring Military Governor Gage sent through Lexington and 
Concord looking for those two arch-rebels to whom alone 
because of their "flagitious offences" amnesty could not be 
granted, — Samuel Adams and John Hancock, whom Paul Re- 
vere saved by his world-famous midnight ride. 

The second Continental Congress met in June of the same 
year and upon the nomination of John Adams, seconded by 
Samuel Adams, chose Washington to command the Continen- 
tal Army, thereby allying Massachusetts and Virginia indis- 
solubly. At this period, an American in London wrote home : 
"I find many who consider your Mr. Samuel Adams the first 
politician in the world." He had escaped "the condign pun- 
ishment" intended for him by Gage and Hutchinson, he had 
seen the hero of Massachusetts, General Joseph Warren, fall 
at Bunker Hill, and with intense seriousness he promptly 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 133 

pushed forward the business of getting independence, which 
a majority of the people did not desire. 

Having taken one of the richest Virginians for general-in- 
chief, the Adamses now took the richest New Englander for 
President of Congress. It was a shrewd move. It made Eng- 
land understand that the wealth of America was enlisted in the 
cause of liberty. 

His Wife Confesses Poverty. — How poor he was In 
February, 1776, his wife wrote him: "I should be glad (my 
Dear), if you should n't come down soon, you would Write 
me Word Who to apply to for some Monney, for I am low in 
Cash and Everything is very dear. 

"May I subscribe myself yours, 

"Eliz'h Adams.'' 

It was a forensic fight to get the Declaration through. Even 
Hancock was against him. The Quakers opposed him. Wash- 
ington was lukewarm, as was Franklin. But Thomas Paine 
just over from England with "The Crisis" and "Common 
Sense" helped to stir up the common people ; and the eloquent 
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia saved the day. At last, upon 
a pestilently hot afternoon, — mosquitoes and horse-flies biting 
the legs of the members, — the Declaration went through hur- 
riedly but unanimously. From various sources, Thomas Jef- 
ferson put it together; and by various means, Samuel Adams 
put it through Congress. 

Personal Peculiarities. — After all, Congress was a small 
afifair, compared with town meeting! Often, two thousand 
voters were in attendance at Old South Church, where it now 
met instead of in the smaller Fanueil Hall. No beginner was 
this man of fifty-three years! In a day and land of class and 
caste, he could mix with one and all as friend and equal. In 
a quavering voice, he declared audacious things. His grip 
on facts was singularly logical. Greatly as he differed in 
many ways from Abraham Lincoln, he was, in his methods, 
devices and manners, quite like him, — deferential, dexterous, 
persevering. Samuel Adams was the caucus organizer of his 
times. Jefferson called him "the fountain of our important 
measures." In an interview in England, Hutchinson told 
King George that Sam Adams was "a man of the most in- 
flexible natural temper" and "the Cromwell of New England." 



134 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

His Services Compared with Others. — Historically, 
Samuel Adams antedates Washington ; without him, the Revo- 
lutionary General would have had no united social and politi- 
cal mind to shape into a nation. Adams comes before Wash- 
ington, and Washington before Franklin. The sequence of 
the crises is this : Adams shaped the colonies to the point of 
the Declaration. Washington held the army together until 
Franklin brought the French to help us smash the British at 
Yorktown. Each of the trio was essential. It is a drama of 
three acts, — The Declaration — Valley Forge — Yorktown. If 
independence by the sword was necessary, then every Ameri- 
can owes gratitude to these three men, — the politician, the 
soldier, and the diplomat. No other one man was essential. 
Others might have written even the Declaration. Not one 
other could possibly have put it through unanimously or at 
all; not one other could have held the Continental Army to- 
gether ; not one other could have persuaded France to help us. 

The Massachusetts State Constitution. — July 4, 1776, 
marked a crisis of American history. It was also the climax 
of the career of Samuel Adams but by no means its ending. 
He helped to frame the State Constitution of Massachusetts. 
Hitherto, we have so seriously overestimated the importance 
of the Federal Constitution as to have neglected the far more 
important State Constitutions, which touch us at twenty 
points to one for the Federal. The difference may be fifty 
compared with the relative importance of clothing and of food, 
we need both. The Federal Constitution is clothing; the 
State is food and drink. 

Samuel Adams also helped to frame the Articles of Con- 
federation for the new nation. He was always a localist, the 
town meeting democrat, no centralizationist. 

A Democrat and a Socialist. — In Massachusetts, he did 
yeoman service not only in the Assembly but also in town- 
meeting. The higher civilization that he kept steadily in view 
was a society of free men and political equals, each doing as 
much for himself as possible and relying upon government as 
little as possible. In 1781, he became a member of the State 
Senate and was at once elected its President. He presided 
over the magnificent ceremonies that witnessed the departure 
of the French army and fleet from Boston in 1782. Later, 
he opposed the proposition to let the Tory refugees return to 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 135 

Boston from Halifax and elsewhere, and won, which was un- 
fortunate. He exerted the powers of the State Government 
vigorously in the troubled days of Shays's Rebellion, which 
also may have been unfortunate. 

The Old Patriot Saves His Son. — In 1788, domestic 
affliction nearly crushed the old statesman. His son, who 
had been a surgeon during the Revolutionary War, died as 
the result of hardships encountered then. With this grief 
upon him, Samuel Adams persuaded the Massachusetts Legis- 
lature to insist upon certain amendments to the Federal Con- 
stitution ; to him more than to any other one man, we owe the 
first amendments, often called our "American Bill of Rights." 
For all his age, he was still a keen workman in government. 
In this year, a local newspaper said of him : "He is the Ameri- 
can Cato. Naked he went into her employ, and naked he came 
out of it." Running for Congress as an anti-Federalist, he 
was defeated by a marvellous young man of thirty-one years, 
Fisher Ames, as an orator the successor to Otis and Henry. 
But the next year, he was elected Lieutenant Governor, Han- 
cock continuing as Governor. The tickets were printed in 
gold ink in token of the honor in which these two men were 
held. 

State Governor in 1794. — When John Hancock died late 
in 1793, Adams succeeded him and was elected annually to 
the governorship in 1794, 1795, 1796, by large majorities. 
In 1797, fifteen electoral votes were cast for him against John 
Adams and Jefferson as President of the United States. But 
he had now retired and, paralyzed, was waiting the end of 
life. His wife and his daughter and her children cared for 
him. And Congress paid to him as heir some six thousand 
dollars of salary due his son for services as army surgeon. He 
failed slowly and gradually until the end came October 2, 
1803. 

So lived and died a mighty Puritan, who tried to prevent 
theatrical plays in Boston when he was State Governor, He 
saw the things of the future far off; and insisted that all the 
world should see through his eyes. Did he make mistakes? 
Many of them, but all relatively small. And the only reason 
why his fame is not vastly greater is that he always tried to 
put others forward; he was "a king-maker." He "made" 
politically both Washington and Hancock — even favored mak- 



136 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

ing Washington a dictator. Bold as a lion for his measures, 
he was always modest respecting himself. He was the ideal 
of an effective type, — the New England folk-mote democrat. 
In his old age, there were three great States, — Virginia, 
Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. He was Governor of one 
of the trio. And all of them were still for State's rights in 
their political faith. 

Patrick Henry 

Patrick Henry Compared with James Otis. — As a 
cynosure of public interest, in the stormy days before the 
Revolution, the only man who equalled Samuel Adams of 
Massachusetts was Patrick Henry, who was often styled in 
the North "the young Sam Adams of Virginia." Later history 
will perhaps think of him as an abler, better poised, less well 
educated James Otis with an equal eloquence. These two 
were the first orators South and North of the new cause. To 
Henry was accorded long life ; but Otis became insane early 
in the wartime as the outcome of an assault by ruffian political 
enemies in 1769, for which they were fined ten thousand dol- 
lars as compensation, an item indignantly refused by the soon 
to be insane victim. It was the irony of fate that Otis re- 
mained alive until 1783 when, as he often prayed to be, he was 
killed by a stroke of lightning. With modern medical care, 
how he might have changed all future history ! 

What Otis, who was born in 1725, was to Massachusetts, 
the inspirer of revolt in the souls even of the Adamses, Henry 
was to Virginia. Their words were, — to use the phrase of 
Homer, — "winged arrows" that flew home to the mark. 

Early Life. — Most of the early life of Henry is obscure. 
All through his life, he had jealous and lying detractors, — 
among whom the over-imaginative Thomas Jefferson was the 
worst. He was born at Studley, Hanover County, Virginia, 
May 29, 1736. His father was a native Scotchman; his 
mother a native of North Carolina, and recently of Welsh 
descent. On both sides, his ancestry had famous names. His 
own opportunities for schooling were meagre, but his father, 
at such times as he could spare, taught him Greek and Latin 
indifferently well. His mother had musical talent, which may 
somewhat account for his own beautiful speaking voice. Of 
his own motion, Henry read diligently Greek and Roman his- 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 137 

tory. He married at eighteen years of age and within a few, 
years failed twice as a merchant and once as a farmer. 

Reads Law, — In 1760, Henry suddenly resolved to try the 
law, read in it diligently for six weeks, in an irresponsible 
social age, was admitted to the bar upon his promise to keep 
on studying, and at once set about getting a practice to support 
himself and family. Very soon, it appeared that he had found 
his vocation, and clients came in steadily increasing numbers. 
He was attractive in speech and conversation and unsparingly 
diligent in their interests. In 1763, at twenty-seven years of 
age, his opportunity came. It was a complicated and ugly 
case that has passed into history as "the Parsons' Cause." 
His own father was judge of the court, — a situation scarcely 
agreeable to the ethics of modern minds. 

The Parsons'' Cause. — The church was established by 
charter in Virginia and the rectors were paid out of taxes, — 
each sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco annually, about six 
months after harvest. In the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, tobacco rose and rose in price until that salary amounted 
to the prodigious sum of two thousand dollars value. The 
Legislature, without permit of the King but with the approval 
of the acting Governor, commuted these salaries to about one- 
third, which was, however, more than the clergy usually had 
received. The King objected. And the clergy sued for the 
payment according to the charter. 

The social situation becomes significant. The common people 
are against the clergy and the establishment of the church. 
The gentry are for the clergy and establishment. Henry is 
made counsel for the defendant vestr)niien of the parish who 
will not pay the salary according to the King's orders ; and 
the case now is upon their appeal from a lower court where 
the vestrymen have lost. 

The jury is stacked for the defendants; no gentlemen sit 
there, the sherifif has seen to that. A great multitude have 
gathered from the countryside to hear the case. What they 
heard was not a legal argument but an assertion that the "King 
was degenerating into a tyrant" and that the clergy were de- 
siring not a verdict of heavy damages but a rebuke of "signal 
severity" for trying to oppose the will of the people of Vir- 
ginia and their patriotic governor. It was an eloquent speech. 
It won. The stacked jury, guided by the judge, a fond ad- 



138 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

mirer of his son, within fifteen minutes asserted the damages 
at one penny. And the fame of Patrick Henry, the victor, 
passed to the CaroHnas and Georgia and to New Jersey and 
Massachusetts. 

"Treason."" — In 1765, he became a member of the Virginia 
House of Burgesses, and offered the resolutions against the 
Stamp Act. The speech is famous for a single passage quoted 
everywhere : 

" 'Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, 
and George the Third,' — here he was interrupted by loud cries 
of 'Treason!' from all parts of the house, — "may profit by 
their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.' " 

This speech confirmed the reputation of Henry as the most 
eloquent man in a colony that already admired eloquence above 
all other powers and graces of men. It made for him violent 
partisans and equally bitter enemies. The resolutions passed 
by the closest of votes, — one majority. The next day, the 
House expunged two of the worst of the resolutions when 
Henry had gone home, thinking that his work was done. 

North, South and beyond the seas went that terrible speech. 

In 1774, Henry met Samuel Adams at the First Congress, 
and then and in 1775 gave to him some support, though he 
himself favored waiting to pass the Declaration until after 
getting friendly assurances from those ancient enemies of 
Great Britain, Spain, and France. 

"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death." — In 1775, before 
the Declaration, he had made the most famous of his speeches, 
and the most famous speech ever made upon American soil. 
The occasion was his own resolution in favor of raising a 
troop of soldiers for the oncoming war. The place was the 
now historic church in Richmond, where the Revolutionary 
Convention was in session. 

The summary of the speech is all that we have of it; but 
eye-witnesses describe it as intensely dramatic, even as vio- 
lently sensational, in its presentation. The summary of 
scarcely twelve hundred words is familiar to all Americans; 
this last paragraph may serve to bring the whole to remem- 
brance : 

"It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry 
peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. 
The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 139 

ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already 
in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gen- 
tlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or 
peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of claims and 
slavery? Forbid it. Almighty God! I know not what course 
others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me 
death !"^ 

Thereafter, Patrick Henry was as much hated and feared 
by the King's party in America and in England as Sam Adams 
himself; as much as Benjamin Franklin, and even more than 
George Washington, the field commander, and John Hancock, 
the rich rebel smuggler. 

Governor of Virginia. — They made Henry Governor of 
the State of Virginia after the Declaration of Independence; 
and frequently recalled him at intervals to the office. He it 
was who sent George Rogers Clark on the amazing expedi- 
tion that saved the Ohio valley to our nation. 

In 1775, his wife, the mother of all his six children, died; 
he married again in 1777; but his health had been irrecovably 
damaged by his labors and anxieties. He was yet to do many 
good things, but to make also serious mistakes. 

The war had moved over into the South from the North; 
and Virginia was the scene of raids and battles. It was to be 
the scene of the final overwhelming defeat of the British at 
Yorktown. Heavy cares came upon the Governor and patriot 
leader. 

The Federal Constitution. — He opposed the Federal 
Constitution, and declined four ofifers of Washington to high 
office, including the Supreme Court Chief Justiceship. That 
this was unfortunate for our country, many believe. John 
Jay, a strong Federalist, was chosen instead. Shortly after 
his election as a member of the Legislature, — where he hoped 
to support the policy of George Washington, then also in re- 
tirement, and so near his end, — Patrick Henry died June 6, 
1 799. And when we read of the medical treatment, we know 
why : he was bled to death. Now we add blood by transfusion 
in such cases. 

Like Franklin, early in life Patrick Henry acquired a com- 
petence, — from his profession, for clients poured into his 
offices from 1763 till 1773, when he practically withdrew from 
the bar. already financially endowed for life. Like Franklin 

^According to the text of William Wirt Life of P. Htnry (1817). 



140 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

also, he had the gift of the necessary and ever memorable 
word. Like John Hancock, he saw some military service. 
And like all three, — Adams, Hancock, and Franklin, — he had 
more offers of office than he could fill. He was the idol of all 
Virginia, save the elite, arousing a far more passionate devo- 
tion to himself than Washington, perhaps with good reason. 

"An American." — Such was the man who in the Provin- 
cial Congress of 1 774 declared : "I am not a Virginian ; I am 
an American!," thereby setting the keynote for hundreds of 
thousands of compatriots. Until i860, most Virginians heart- 
ily agreed. 

John Hancock 

Early Life. — ^John Hancock of Massachusetts was ever 
present, ever prominent, but influential not for his ideas or his 
labors but for his ever-ready purse. He was born in Quincy, 
Massachusetts, January 23, 1737, in a family of wealth and 
birth and breeding. Perforce, he was sent to Harvard Col- 
lege, receiving the degree of bachelor of arts at the early age 
of seventeen. Immediately, he went into the commercial house 
of his rich uncle Thomas Hancock, who, dying in 1764, be- 
queathed him not only his estate but the most profitable busi- 
ness in America. 

Smuggling. — At twenty-seven years of age, John Hancock 
was now a marked man, subject to all the temptations and 
flatteries that have attended rich young heirs in all ages and 
lands. Sam Adams soon gathered him into the company of 
the disaffected ; helped, of course, by the fact that much of the 
revenue of the Hancock business was derived from enterprises 
that were, legally considered, smuggling. His ships and cargoes 
evaded the King's taxes, to his profit and the King's loss. 
Most of his neighbors and rivals likewise were smugglers, — 
in the same outlaw sense that most of them later became 
rebels. 

The Sloop "Liberty." — ^Adams saw that Hancock would 
make a good selectman of the town of Boston; and in 1765 
town-meeting as usual followed the advice of its manager. 
Next year, Adams saw that Hancock would make a good repre- 
sentative for Boston in the Massachusetts General Court, the 
colonial legislature; and town-meeting elected him. Two 
years later, in 1768, the customs officers of the King seized 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 141 

Hancock's sloop "Liberty" — ominous name — for discharging, 
without payment of duties, a cargo of Madeiro wine, — in 
other words, for smuggling. They brought so many suits 
against him that if they had won and enforced the claims, Han- 
cock would have been driven out of business. Adams was 
under the same kind of attack; it was indeed the familiar 
course of tyrants in all ages, to ruin their enemies by legal 
process. That cargo of Madeiro wine shows many things to 
the discerning. For one, it shows the prosperous market in 
Boston, since good wine is a luxury of the rich. For another, 
it is one more instance in history of wealth derived from 
alcoholic stimulants. Perhaps, it helps explain the gout that 
Hancock suffered from during most of his adult life. And 
more than anything else, it brought the Hancock signature 
down upon the Declaration of Independence, — his name went 
first upon what was white paper before the hour when some 
fifty-six men made their bid for immortal fame. Perhaps, 
good wine explains the lethargy of John Hancock in many 
hours of crisis and likewise his prompt action in others. At 
any rate, his oversea trade to the West Indies and to remoter 
lands gave to Hancock those funds by which, beyond even 
Washington, he made patriotism fashionable even in the eyes 
of the mean and of the hostile. For another item, his con- 
fiscated cargo of Madeiro made him immensely popular among 
the Whigs of Massachusetts Bay Colony. For still another 
item, a good fee to young John Adams, for defending Han- 
cock, helped that young man on in life. Dorothy Quincy, 
Hancock's beautiful wife, was a cousin of Abigail Smith, wife 
of Samuel Adams, which explains much, for the Quincys 
knew and practiced kinship. And for a last item, a few years 
later. Governor Gage would seek John Hancock at Lexington, 
fugitive in a criminal case in which the royal government 
planned to mulct him of $500,000. Hancock would pay others 
to fight for him rather than meekly surrender half his fortune 
for doing what every one else did ! 

Affairs with Sam and John Adams. — In 1770, Hancock 
went with Sam Adams upon that memorable demand, after 
the "Boston Massacre," that Governor Hutchinson remove the 
King's regiments. And when, in 1774, the matter of clothes 
and of a purse for Adams came up, Hancock was quick to 



142 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

go into his pocket for what was to him small change but to 
the agitator the means of life. 

With the fame of the Hancock patriotic resistance and of 
the Hancock annual income, with the presence of a man hand- 
somely dressed and of a slender, graceful figure and charming 
manners, Sam Adams had no difficulty in making the Massa- 
chusetts man President of the Provincial Congress. Political 
log-rolling helped ; Virginia had Washington for commander- 
in-chief, let the other honor go to the great Colony of the 
North! 

The Presidency. — If instead of the Presidency of that 
single-chamber legislature, Adams had before him the Presi- 
dency of a nation to fill, he would have selected John Han- 
cock just the same. For this reason, the bold merchant seek- 
ing larger freedom to trade, belongs in this record of the im- 
mortal Presidents. 

For a hundred and fifty years, we have allowed ourselves 
to belittle John Hancock because he was — as the Loyalists 
said — ^"Adams' ape" or "Adams' dupe" ; and we have allowed 
ourselves to belittle Samuel Adams because he was a rundown 
specimen of a noble colonial family, a town-meeting busybody, 
an agitator and politician who used John Hancock as his stalk- 
ing-horse. It is high time that we cast off these puerilities of 
a jealous, anxious, quarrelsome time whose issues were far 
more weighty than most of the people even dreamed. It may 
be said of Hancock that he generated no new ideas; but he 
was certainly a faithful seconder of more brilliant public men. 

For the truth is that Hancock was an able, clear-headed, 
patriotic, well-poised, usually energetic man, — of the type that 
we should often choose for presiding and executive offices. 
He was dignified, urbane, impartial upon trivial matters, par- 
tisan only upon the main issue. 

Compared with Other Rich Men. — Hancock was the 
first merchant of his times; and the first in resistance to the 
settled government Imagine the first merchant of our times, 
our own rich and foremost man, in such rebellion ! Enlarge 
the picture: Here are Washington and Nelson and Carroll, 
the landowners; Hancock, merchant prince; and Ben Frank- 
lin, rich man, famous author, scientist, colonial chief of the 
postoffice, — in rebellion. By the side of this picture, place 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 143 

John Jacob Astor, John D. Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan, 
Thomas A. Edison, and Andrew Carnegie, relatively to-day 
in the same rank as men of wealth; and imagine their risking 
life, property and reputation in open treason against existing 
government. 

Governor of Massachusetts. — In 1778, John Hancock 
became major-general in command of the militia of Massa- 
chusetts, and saw service in Rhode Island. When Massachu- 
setts made its constitution, there was he in the convention. 
In 1780 the State made him its first governor, A constant 
primacy of this character does not fall to an ordinary man. 
He was governor of his State until 1785 and again from 1787 
until his death in 1793. He was president of the State Con- 
vention that in 1788 ratified the Federal Constitution. 

An Able Business Man. — And while John Hancock was 
attending to all the multifarious duties of these political offices, 
during all these troublous years, he was running — in an age 
of social discontent, in an age also without railroad mail or 
telegraph service or typewriters — not only the greatest busi- 
ness in America but also a steadily growing business. Battles 
might rage on sea and land; the ships and cargoes of John 
Hancock were borne hither and yon on the high seas, and his 
merchandise was sold at home and abroad. He was, of neces- 
sity, a keen judge of men and of social conditions. Of course, 
he bought and sold, along with other merchandise, negroes. 
It takes a shrewd man to be at once a trader and a good 
enough politician to be elected annually as governor in a State 
of town-meeting-men, any of whom is, or thinks he is, quite 
fit for "most any office." 

Aristocrat and Patriot. — Popular, amiable, shrewd, bold 
enough in a crisis, persistent, ostentatious, — such was the 
Boston man whose alliance with Sam Adams during most of 
his life — with but one serious break between them, which did 
not last many years — caused even Lord North to fear from 
the first that the rebels might win. Husband of a daughter of 
that noble Bay State family, — the Quincys, — generous patron 
and benefactor of his Alma Mater, Harvard College, like 
Washington, fond of society, John Hancock, seen in the clear 
retrospect of history, is the aristocrat who amply justifies his 
class. Had we drawn more of our material in times past from 
less levelling and democratic sources, for the writing of his- 



144 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

tory, Americans would have given to John Hancock the more 
honorable place to which, upon consideration, he is certainly 
entitled. Perhaps, the fact that he was generous almost to 
profligacy, giving lavishly of his vast profits to all and sundry, 
a natural philanthropist, prejudiced thrifty Yankee writers 
subconsciously against him as evidence of weakmindedness. 

State's Rights. — John Hancock may have had a slightly 
exaggerated idea of State's rights and of his own rights ; but 
if he had not felt these ideas strongly, American history 
would have been different from what it was. He may have 
been eager for profits; but without his money, which, as a 
business man, he got by taking things as they were and making 
the best of them, neither Adams would have been heard of 
beyond Massachusetts. And without the Adamses, we should 
not have had an independent American history. Hancock 
may not have been a great man, but he was a gentleman and 
absolutely necessary for the great political enterprise then on 
hand. 

Benjamin Franklin 

Humble Origin. — The fourth of the forerunners of the 
nation's Presidents to be considered herein is another Boston 
man, born in a house opposite Old South Church, January 1 7, 
1706, and destined to enter the world's pantheon of immortals, 
— Benjamin Franklin. He came of no old family and had 
his only education in his father's business of tallow-chandler 
and soap-boiler. The youngest son in a large family, he was 
taken at twelve years of age by a half-brother to be apprentice 
in his printing business. His father was English by birth, 
and in the custom of the English of a certain class had married 
early, after his first wife's death immediately married again, 
and as fast as his children became large enough to do any- 
thing, set them to work. 

Early Life. — Early in life, little Benjamin displayed a 
talent for writing doggerel verse, and his big brother printed 
it in leaflets that the child hawked in the streets of Boston. 
When his brother was forbidden to issue his paper because it 
oflFended the authorities in that sensitive age before free speech 
and press were established, in 1722, the boy found himself 
ostensibly editor-proprietor of a Boston newspaper, for which 
he wrote articles much admired by the discontented. But next 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 145 

year, he found that for his safety and freedom he must leave 
the city and go elsewhere. There was trouble between himself 
and his much older half-brother James ; and between himself 
and the public officials. In 1723, he became a resident and 
printer in Philadelphia. 

A Wanderer. — ^A year later Franklin is practicing his 
trade of printing and learning yet more of the good and evil 
ways of the world in London, England. In 1726, at the 
mature age of twenty, he is back again in Philadelphia; and 
the year 1729 sees him in possession of a weekly newspaper, 
and beginning a public career. In 1736, he becomes clerk of 
the Pennsylvania General Assembly, serving there for fifteen 
years. In 1737, he is the Philadelphia postmaster also; and 
organizes a police force and a fire company. In 1751, he 
founds the academy out of which has grown the University 
of Pennsylvania ; also is elected a member of the General As- 
sembly; and establishes the city hospital. 

Colonial Postmaster in 1753. — The points of contact 
between Franklin and the world about him were many. He 
became colonial postmaster in 1753 and continued as such 
until 1774, visiting every one of the twenty-eight postoffices 
in the colonies, many of which he personally established. In 
1754, he submitted at Albany his famous plan for colonial 
union, anticipating even Samuel Adams therein. He per- 
sonally financed the famous expedition of General Braddock 
against Fort Duquesne in 1755, and next year built forts in 
western Pennsylvania. A year passed, and he was again in 
London, this time as agent for the Colony of Pennsylvania, — 
to stay five years. 

Scientific Discoveries. — In the meantime, he had already 
won such fame for his scientific discoveries that in 1757 ^^^ 
Scottish University of St. Andrews made him doctor of laws, 
one of several such honors received at this period. Returning 
in 1762 to America, Franklin set himself to research work in 
experimental physics ; but was soon drawn into the civil dis- 
cords of the Quaker colony, which in 1764 sent him to London 
again. 

Pamphleteer. — He styled the proposed Stamp Act as "the 
mother of mischief," but this pamphlet, unlike others from 
his skillful and indefatigable pen, failed of its purpose. In 
1766, he appeared before all Parliament in an inquiry as to 



146 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

the effect of the Act, and forced its repeal. He had become 
almost an ambassador for the colonies, for New Jersey, 
Georgia, and Massachusetts had all made him their agent as 
well as Pennsylvania's. 

In 1773, Benjamin Franklin worked off upon Parliament 
one of his cleverest hoaxes, "An edict of the King of Prussia," 
purporting to be an assertion that England was a colony since 
its settlement by the Angles and Saxons, and declaring a tax- 
levy ! Next year, the British Ministry removed Franklin from 
his position as chief of the colonial post service. 

An old man now, in 1775, Doctor Franklin sailed home, — 
to rest, so he thought. He arrived in the slow sailing-vessels 
of the time, to hear of Lexington and Concord. His great 
career was about to begin ! Opportunity was before him. 

Many Enterprises. — At once, without much election for- 
mality, Franklin became a member of the Continental Con- 
gress, serving on ten. different committees. In April, 1776, 
for all his years, he set off to Canada with a few others on the 
official business of trying to persuade that colony to unite with 
the rebels. He was back just in time to vote, — after some 
personal hesitation, — for the Declaration of Independence. A 
few days later, he was made president of the Pennsylvania 
Constitutional Convention, while remaining a member of 
Congress. No labors were too great for the versatile man. 
Before the Convention adjourned, he was already appointed 
Commissioner to France; sold some of his property, for inci- 
dentally he had made a deal of money, loaned Congress twenty 
thousand dollars; and was in Paris before Christmas. 

A Genius. — Already, Franklin was a member of every im- 
portant learned society in Europe. His books and pamphlets 
were known everywhere. His picture was in every printshop 
and in many houses. He was the powerful enemy of Great 
Britain, the man of letters, the scientist, the diplomat, the in- 
ventor, the philosopher, le grand Franklin. It hurt him none 
in the court and salons of that fashionable and loose city that 
he had two illegitimate children and could not legally marry 
his acknowledged wife, the mother of two children more 
because she was not legally divorced from her husband. It 
hurt him none that he was reputed to be capable of sharp 
practices in politics. It hurt him none that he was known to 
lie a-bed often until noon and sometimes all day. They took 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 147 

him for what he was — a sheer genius, with all his faults and 
sins and foibles upon him. The gold in the coin carried the 
base metal. 

In Paris. — The winter of Valley Forge followed the cap- 
ture of Burgoyne at Saratoga in October, 1777; and in Feb- 
ruary, 1778, Franklin put through the treaty of alliance be- 
tween France and the United States. It was the greatest 
event of all that busy, triumphant life; and turned Washing- 
ton's heart from grim, invincible endurance to hope of victory. 
By loan and by gift, in support of her soldiers and sailors in 
America, France turned over to the patriots in all some sixty 
million dollars, — a vast sum for the independence of three 
millions of people from a nation whose treasury was bankrupt. 

A Prodigious Worker. — The amount of work actually 
done by Doctor Franklin during these terrible years of war, 
with the clerical assistance of but one man, his natural grand- 
son William Temple Franklin, — work .at court, raising of 
money for privateersmen, sales of cargoes pledged on loans, 
correspondence not only with America but also with American 
diplomats and agents in Spain, Holland, and elsewhere, dis- 
cussions with England over the exchange of prisoners, social, 
literary, and scientific undertaking, — passes credibility. All 
that we who follow him can do is to accept him, as the French 
did, as sui generis. His was a pol3^hase mind. 

Peace Commissioner. — In November, 1782, came the pre- 
liminary treaty of peace with Great Britain ; and in September, 
1783, the final treaty, in both of which Franklin was one of 
the American commissioners. But this did not conclude his 
European service; — there were treaties to be negotiated with 
Sweden and with Prussia. At last, however, the old, old man 
in September, 1785, arrived home — to be at once elected 
chairman of the city council of Philadelphia and president of 
the council (virtually State governor) of Pennsylvania. In 
1787, he became a member of the Federal Constitutional Con- 
vention and was first vice-president, being therefore second 
only to Washington. 

The Oldest Member of the Federal Convention. — It 
is told of him that he came to the Convention every day but 
often fell asleep. He was, however, very wide awake when 
he resolved all the doubts of the hesitating and won almost 
unanimous support for the proposed constitution by suggesting 



148 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

a characteristically ingenious device that the members certify 
the adoption of the constitution by the convention and not 
necessarily their own agreement with it. A subtle, complex 
mind like his often achieves much in politics. 

All the world remembers the speech of Franklin there on 
the. last day, — how he knew at last that he was looking upon a 
rising, not a setting, sun. All the world remembers his remark 
at the time of the signing of the Declaration, — about hanging 
together lest they hang separately. 

On February 12, 1790, Doctor Franklin, president of the 
Pennsylvania Society against slavery, signed and forwarded a 
petition to Congress for its immediate abolition ; but Congress 
did nothing, could not see as far ahead as Franklin, and the 
war of slavery had to come. Two months later, he died at his 
own home in Philadelphia. 

Only the heavy burden of his years kept him irom the 
Presidency. 

His Personal Appearance. — Benjamin Franklin was in 
physique a large man, not quite six feet tall, and in youth a 
deal of an athlete, especially as a swimmer. He even contem- 
plated at one time becoming a teacher of swimming in London. 
He had many physiological notions that seemed like vagaries 
to men of the time, — among them daily cold baths, sunning 
himself naked in his room, vegetarianism, which he did not 
too closely follow, and fresh air. He was full of all manner 
of moral theories on which he was much given to discourse. 
He never obeyed moral maxims rigidly. 

He was a skillful printer and a most enterprising publisher. 
At one period in the 30's, he had a chain of printing-shops in 
some ten different places in America, including the West 
Indies. "Poor Richard's Almanack" (annual) was his most 
successful publishing venture, and sold at the rate of ten 
thousand or more each year, at a good profit. His "Autobiog- 
raphy" is yet more famous in this era; it is simple, sincere, 
practical, utilitarian, and to the young and poor inspiring. He 
wrote much upon the theory and practice of economics. For 
one matter, he was an ardent free-trader. 

His inventions are many : the lightning rod ; the "Franklin" 
stove, which is an iron fireplace out in the room ; an anti-smoke 
device for chimneys, and another for lamps; several devices 
for eye-glasses; non-upsettable dishes for ships at sea; water- 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTER 149 

tight compartments for ships; fertilizers; a clock-machinery; 
a ship's anchor for storms. 

He urged the use of oil on the waters during storms ; wrote 
on earthquakes, the Gulf-Stream, the sun's heat; and discov- 
ered the positive and negative powers of electricity. 

Ablest of All Americans. — At once bold even to audac- 
ity, yet circumspect; clear-headed, calm, patient; immensely 
laborious yet fond of company and of companions ; grave, yet 
humorous and at times witty; full of animal passions; seeing 
things afar off yet willing to take up the pettiest details ; never 
hurried and not long in doubt about any matters, Benjamin 
Franklin, taken by-and-large, maybe, indeed is, considerably 
lower than perhaps three or four other Americans in total 
worth but fully entitled to all the place so freely accorded to 
him by his European contemporaries as a man great enough 
to belong to humanity of all ages and lands. At any rate, of 
most of his public work, Americans may well be proud and 
for all of it intensely grateful. 

Limited, Strong, Central Government. — In politics, he 
was an ardent democrat and individualist, and yet he saw the 
necessity of a strong but limited central government. This is 
the only possible position for a philosopher and philanthropist ; 
and Benjamin Franklin was both. 

Like Washington, Franklin made the name American not 
merely respectable In Europe but honorable. No other man 
coming to the French Court would have had his prestige and 
few others his dignified, attractive bearing. In those grey 
eyes, in that confident, easy, paternal bearing as of a man aloof 
from the ordinary struggle, in those lucid sentences, whether 
written or spoken, France and through France all Continental 
Europe felt the rise of a new and equal nation upon earth; 
and responded accordingly. 



CHAPTER II 
Constitutional and Customary Powers 

Office originated on paper — changing powers — general powers — messages 
summoning Congress — appointments to office — senatorial courtesy — 
treaties — commander-in-chief — limitations of his power — impeach- 



I50 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

ment — signatures to countless documents — two kinds of vetoes — recess 
appointments — pardons — international social courtesies — later career 
of J. Q. Adams — growth of nation — the five revolutions upon our soil 
— government versus big business — review of various Presidents as 
affecting the office — contrasts of weak and strong men — peace and 
war — the Presidency and the average man — what shall we do with 
"former Presidents"? — the dangerous interregnum — conventions will 
pass — a gerrymandered nation — public office not a personal reward — 
government in impasse — needlessly early deaths. 

An Office Created on Paper. — Few other subjects so en- 
grossed the attention of the Federal Convention as that of the 
nature and tenure of the executive. The members themselves 
were filled with "the dread and fear of kings" and knew that 
nearly all other Americans felt likewise. But they had seen 
the weakness of the Continental Congress upon the adminis- 
trative side, and meant to make the head of the new govern- 
ment strong. They had no complete historical models by which 
to go. Because the States had governors, they must avoid 
that term. "President" was mild. Pennsylvania had a Presi- 
dent of its Council. They would make their President strong 
but subject him to a short term and to the control of the Senate 
for all appointments. 

The American Presidency was, therefore, virtually an office 
created on paper, without adequate historical precedent, and a 
unique feature of a generally unique experiment in govern- 
ment. Perhaps, no other important feature of the Constitution 
has worked better and provoked less criticism, reasonable or 
unreasonable, than the short term, strong-powered, single 
executive. 

Certainly, here in America we have nothing of kingship, — 
no naming of heirs, no free calling out of soldiers, no coercion 
of citizens, in respect to property or to liberty, no dictation to 
judges or to juries, no immense and permanent prestige. 

The President now has so many laws to enforce in general, 
so many to carry out in detail, that he exercises discretion of 
a judicial nature in respect to them all. He can create conster- 
nation or confidence by his course. He seldom follows the 
letter of a statute that is not vigorously backed by public 
opinion. This, more than anything else, explains why the 
Sherman anti-trust law, which is a criminal statute, was not 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS 151 

enforced at all for ten years until the time of Roosevelt, and 
only in civil actions by Taft. As soon as public opinion gives 
force to the statute, the President will proceed criminally 
against the milHonaire o/Ienders. At first, it v^as said to 
apply only to railroads, but now, — because of public opinion, — 
it applies to all enterprises. 

To understand the powers of the President fully, we must 
first clear from our minds the notion that he is the head solely 
of the executive branch. He is not solely the agent of Con- 
gress and the instrument of the courts for the enforcement 
of lav/s. He is part and parcel of the legislative and judicial 
processes. By his messages, he initiates legislation and by his 
vetoes ends, delays or modifies legislation. He names the 
judges ; nor is he in contempt when he refuses to execute their 
writs. The courts have no remedy against him. Impeach- 
ment can be only by Congress. I have talked with one Presi- 
dent as to his right to remove a judge, even a Supreme Court 
Justice. He probably can do this, when he thinks it wise. No 
President ever has done it. Impeachment of Justices usually 
fails. But removal for cause to be determined by the Presi- 
dent is probably within the Constitution and the statutes. At 
any rate, suspension from duty from failure of "good 
behavior" is.^ Power, honor and salary cease for a time. 

And it must be clearly understood that the Secretaries of 
the Cabinet of the President are in no sense responsible min- 
isters. The Secretary of State appoints and removes no diplo- 
mats. The Department of Justice appoints no judges. The 
Treasury decides very little. The President is the sun of the 
executive universe, and all light radiates from him. 

The powers of the Presidency may be classified as general 
and as specific; as for use always; and as for use all the time / 

and as for use only in war-time. 

General Powers. — The first general power of the Presi- 
dent is to address messages to Congress. No other power is 
so important as this. The message has two values, — direct 
with reference to Congress, indirect through public opinion. 
A well-constructed message backfires upon the law-making 
body, and since judges are human, upon the courts. When a 
message from the President is announced, in either House, all 
other business is suspended. Wliatever be its nature, it must be 
read aloud from beginning to end, in regular session, — though, 

^See Article III of the Constitution. 



152 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

of course, members of Congress are not required to sit and to 
listen; a quorum, however, may be demanded. 

Messages to Congress. — The President may send one 
annual message ; and he may send as many more messages as 
he sees fit. These messages may be as long as the President 
chooses. In fact, some Presidents have written a thousand in 
a single term; several considerably exceeded this number. 

Special Sessions. — Scarcely less important is the power of 
the President to call Congress in special session. Many Presi- 
dents have done this. A President can in truth keep Congress 
in constant session, convoking it immediately after adjourn- 
ment. Congress meets annually in December. In alternate 
(odd) years, the terms of Senators and Representatives run 
out in March. Two-thirds of the Senators hold over, but all 
the Representatives are subject to change every two years. In 
consequence, we have come to speak of Congress as new each 
biennium. Each Presidential administration covers two Con- 
gresses, and at least four sessions of Congress. The first 
regular session of Congress, meeting in December and adjourn- 
ing as it sees fit in March or May or July, is called the "long 
session," while the second regular session of the Congress 
going out of office March 3d is called the "short session." 
The latter always contains members who have failed of re- 
election or who have voluntarily retired. In an epoch of 
political change, the short session usually accomplishes but 
little, for Congress then has many "lame ducks." When a 
President calls a special session, it is usually for the season 
immediately following the short session. Therefore, Congress 
contains a larger or smaller number of new members, anxious 
to get a record for theiit:jonstituencies at least in respect to 
their votes but ignorant of the ways of this great two-graded 
club of the agents of the governing classes of the American 
people. These new members usually entertain the highest 
respect for the President and take his recommendations at least 
seriously if not favorably. But the session is usually in summer 
when Washington is damp and torrid so that climate prevents 
large accomplishment. 

Appointments to Office. — Another power of the Presi- 
dent is to name new men for office and to promote, demote 
and transfer by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. 
In a sense, either the Senate or the President may veto an 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS 153 

appointment. This power of the President covers thousands 
of officers, including all the Federal judiciary, the Cabinet, 
the heads of the bureaus, and the Army and Navy. But "Sena- 
torial courtesy," which assumes many rights not specifically 
named in the Constitution, uses to the full the perfectly clear 
rights both to advise, which means to initiate appointments, 
and to consent, which means to veto nominations, so that in 
fact Presidents seldom name men for office until they are sure 
that the nominations will be confirmed and usually name men 
who were first suggested to them by Senators. 

Because the House fixes appropriations and salaries, men 
are seldom named for new offices until the President knows 
that they will be satisfactory to the House leaders and majority 
party. 

Senatorial Courtesy. — So vast is the population, so large 
is the number of offices to be filled that a President must rely 
upon the Senators of each State, upon the Representatives of 
each District, and upon the experienced officers of the Depart- 
ments for nearly all his information respecting nominees. This 
system of appointment works fairly well in respect to the per- 
functory honesty of the officers whom the Presidents name, 
but it does not work so well in respect to their peculiar fitness 
for office. The Government experiences but little peculation 
by its officeholders; it still suffers for want of high efficiency 
in its officers. Because of this lack of efficiency, there is some 
corruption due far more often to the hoodwinking of inefficient 
men than to their connivance with dishonest contractors, 
dealers and others. It is an interesting fact that the opinion 
of politicians may be taken more safely in respect to the 
honesty of their candidates for a;. ^ointment than in respect 
to the ability and fitness of the men. Unquestionably, 
the salaries of the officers of the executive branch are too low 
to secure an average of men of sufficiently high ability. 

Treaty Negotiations. — A fourth power of the President i^ 
is to negotiate treaties with foreign nations. This he does 
through the Secretary of State and the foreign ambassadors 
whom he and the Senate appoint. The President is the titular 
head of the nation. He ranks with emperors and kings and 
above princes. The United States is a first class power, in 
the grade with Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and Japan, 
and above France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Turkey, China and 



154 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

all other nations. But the President has no such official 
authority and prestige as King, Kaiser, Emperor, and Mikado, 
all the patriotic outpourings of American orators, rhetori- 
cians, political scientists to the contrary notwithstanding. The 
child of his loins is not his heir. Death is not the term of his 
authority. He has no crown lands, no wellsprings of gold. 
He cannot make lords and nobles and knights. For him, 
there is no lese majeste. Legally, he cannot set armies and 
navies in motion; actually, he does. He serves for four 
years; he never rules, and he never reigns. Even during the 
four years, he may be impeached and removed. Only by vio- 
lating the Constitution and getting away before the people 
wake up, can he of himself alone do anything. 

A treaty negotiated by the President is not complete until 
ratified by the Senate. If it involves any appropriation, it 
does not become effective until the entire Congress has passed 
the appropriation. Upon the President, therefore, devolves 
all the immense burden of international relations with Europe, 
Asia, Africa, South America, and Central America. This 
burden concerns commerce, finance, politics, migrations of 
peoples, crimes. 

Commander-in-Chief of Army and Navy. — A fifth 
power of the President is to act as commander-in-chief of the 
army and navy. In time of peace, this is relatively not im- 
portant ; but in time of war, it is supreme. Though the Senate 
must confirm army and navy promotions as well as appoint- 
ments and though Congress must appropriate the money to 
carry out campaigns, and build battleships to fight on the seas, 
still the sudden emergencies of war make the executive chief 
actually the director and dictator. 

Presidential Limitations. — Court Review. — The limi- 
tations of the powers of the President are many. Whatever 
he does is subject to. review by the courts, for he derives his 
powers from the Constitution and the laws which the courts 
interpret. In consequence, he submits many of the things that 
he proposes to do to the consideration of the Attorney Gen- 
eral. Courts do not construe moot questions but only accom- 
plished deeds ; and yet by the study of their decisions, learned 
lawyers can frequently, perhaps usually, predict what the 
courts will do in given hypothetical cases. The officers of the 
executive branch of the government are often acquaintances 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS 155 

and sometimes friends of the judges and know what their 
personal views of the legaHty of various courses of conduct 
are. This is inevitable. They read the minds of the judges 
and foresee their decisions. Sometimes, they are fully in- 
formed in advance, as in the Dred Scott case.^ 

Impeachment. — A second limitation of the Presidency 
consists in the power of impeachment vested in the House of 
Representatives to be tried in the Senate.^ Presidents know 
that they may do things that are constitutional and yet lose 
office. What they do that is unconstitutional, the courts can 
annul so far as it is possible to annul accomplished things 
and to correct the past. 

But one President has actually been impeached. Threats, 
however, have often been made to impeach and that by im- 
portant Senators and Congressmen. They were made against 
Jackson, Polk, Lincoln, Grant, and Roosevelt with great vehe- 
mence not once only but often. The threat to impeach is itself 
a check upon action. 

Signatures Railroaded Fast. — ^A third limitation upon 
the power of the President is the human fact that he has but 
twenty- four hours a day to live. No Presidents have been 
young men, and but two of them were in the middle life of 
the forties. Not many of them when in this highest office 
possessed great physical working powers. In consequence, 
nearly all the things that Presidents do or refuse to do are 
done or refused upon advice without any personal investiga- 
tion or consideration by themselves. Hundreds of documents 
are signed daily or otherwise authorized that the President in 
office has never read and could not possibly get time to read. 
More than one President has made himself sick from over- 
work trying to pass intelligently upon too much of the busi- 
ness before him. 

Two Kinds of Vetoes. — Of the specific powers of the 
Presidents, the most important is to veto bills passed by Con- 
gress. There are two kinds of vetoes, — the direct and the 
indirect or "pocket" veto. To become law, a bill must be 
passed in the identical words, first, by one House of Congress, 

^See p. 417, infra. 

*The legal process is not stated in Constitution, Art. II, Sect. 4. See pp. 
492-493, infra. 



156 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

and, then, by the other, and must be signed by the President. 
To pass a bill on third reading requires a majority of the 
members present. No vote can be taken without a quorum, 
which is a majority, when a quorum is demanded by any 
member. A majority of the quorum (the legal body) or a 
majority of the majority (which may be a real minority) can 
pass a bill. A veto can be overruled only by two-thirds of the 
quorum. The Senate has now 96 members ; 49 make a quorum. 
Twenty-five members can pass a bill in such a quorum ; but at 
least 34 are required to overcome a veto. The President, there- 
fore, offsets at least 6 Senators. Usually, 60 Senators are 
present upon ordinary votes ; and 75 on veto votes. In a gen- 
eral way, therefore, the veto of the President equals a dozen 
Senatorial votes. His power in the House is at least 2.J votes 
and averages 40 votes in value. The maximum power of the 
veto is 15 Senators and 71 Representatives (1913 and there- 
after). The Supreme Court has ruled that even for the sub- 
mission of a Constitutional Amendment to the State legislatures 
two-thirds of Congress means two-thirds of a quorum of each 
House. 

The veto is a great power for another reason. There are 
always some members who will vote for a bill upon its first 
passage but who will not vote for it against the President's 
veto. A bill passes the Senate with a vote of 37 to 15 in its 
favor, and the House by a similar vote ; but is vetoed. Of the 
37 Senators and perhaps 250 Representatives who have voted 
for it, some will now certainly vote against it. Among them- 
will be personal friends of the President, politicians unwilling 
to go before their constituents as opponents of the President, 
good-natured men who don't like quarrels, and others who on 
principle consider the Presidency an ofiice greatly to be re- 
spected and strongly to be supported. The bill may still get 
37 votes in the Senate or 250 in the House, but it will be for- 
tunate if it does not lose ten or twenty per cent, of its original 
supporters. When vetoed bills are up for passage, the attend- 
ance is usually large; but the absentees at the time of the 
former vote mostly support the vetoes. After a Senate vote 
of 37 to 15 on first passage with 52 voting, there would 
probably be a vote of 48 to 27 on attempt to pass again, with 
75 voting. 

A pocket veto takes place only when, after passing a bill, 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS 157 

Congress adjourns, and the President fails to sign the bill 
within ten days of adjournment. A bill passed during a 
session becomes law without the signature of the President, 
provided that he does not veto it within ten days. Presidents 
sometimes are indifferent to bills and allow them to pass in 
this fashion — shuffling aside all direct responsibility. 

Recess Appointments. — Another specific power of the 
President is that of making recess appointments without the 
advice and consent of the Senate. Many such appointments 
are necessarily made, because Congress is usually in session 
only six or seven months in its long term and always in session 
only three months in its short term. Special sessions may 
last two or three months. About one Congress in three or 
four has a special session. A President has Congress at his 
doors scarcely half the time of his administration but is meet- 
ing changes in office every day in the year. A recess or 
interim appointment until Congress meets holds until Congress 
actually rejects the nomination. Official courtesy between 
President and Senate requires that he shall submit his recess 
appointments to the consideration of the Senate early in De- 
cember. In actual practice, the Senate rejects but few recess 
appointments. 

Pardons and Reprieves. — The President may pardon or 
reprieve criminals sentenced for offences against the laws of 
the United States. Though seldom exercised, it is a necessary 
power. Judges themselves sometimes find that they have 
erred in sending men to prison or have sent them for too long 
terms, and ask the President to intervene. Newly discovered 
facts sometimes greatly change the complexion of a case. The 
search for strict justice shows the constant fallibility of men. 

The President receives foreign ambassadors and ministers 
both upon official business and socially. 

Social Prestige. — Because of his high and vast authority, 
of his residence in an official mansion provided at national 
cost, and because of h;s usual personal prestige and influence, 
the President is the social arbiter of Washington. The White 
House is the center of society. Here he, and upon some occa- 
sions his family, receives every manner of guest and visitor. 
There are great banquets of state and official dinners, lunches, 
even breakfasts, — there are public receptions to some of which 
the uninvited may come; there are afternoon teas and other 



158 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

private social affairs. Here, he meets ambassadors, senators, 
governors, millionaires, foreign visitors of distinction, and 
others entitled or claiming to be entitled to meet on equal 
terms the first citizen of the land. To be a White House in- 
vited guest is a social honor. Frequently, it leads to or follows 
political honor and influence. 

With the Presidential authority, the successful candidate 
acquires social prestige; but both are brief. 

The Changing Powers of the President. — Laws Inter- 
preted. — It has been a common opinion of students of poli- 
tical science and history that to-day the President has the 
same authority as in 1789. It is asserted that because his 
powers have not been changed in amendments to the Federal 
Constitution since they were first defined, they are the same. 
But for four reasons, this is not true. The first is perfectly 
simple and should be obvious even to professed historical 
students and certainly to observant and well-informed citizens. 
The powers of the President have been interpreted many, 
many times by the courts. This large body of judge-made 
laws greatly affects the Constitutional powers. The judicial 
definition sometimes extends and sometimes limits the Con- 
stitutional powers. 

Growth of Nation. — A second reason is also simple but 
not so obvious. An authority over 4,000,000 people in thirteen 
States, eight of them small, is a very different authority from 
that over 103,000,000 people in forty-eight States, and many 
colonies, most of them large. 

The ascertainable wealth of all Americans in 1789 did not 
exceed $600,000,000; to-day, it is $120,000,000,000. Such 
changes in quantity of population and of resources under 
control makes changes in the quality of the control. It be- 
comes more extensive and more superficial. 

The Operation of Political Authority. — A third 
reason is that the steam railroad with its mails, the printing 
press with its newspapers, the telegraph and the telephone and 
the transmarine cable have completely revolutionized, reconsti- 
tuted the conditions in which political authority operates. San 
Francisco is nearer Washington now than Philadelphia was 
in 1830. The Presidency is nearer each one of us. In losing 
remoteness, it loses prestige but gains efficiency. 

Definite Duties. — The fourth reason Is that statutes have 



CONSTITUTIONAI. POWERS 159 

l^een enacted giving the President definite duties in immense 
variety. The Presidency is a central telephone exchange with 
93,000,000 domestic subscribers and 10,000,000 more under 
the flag. And it connects with the telephone exchanges of 
every capital of the world. Federal acts and international 
treaties have done things beyond recounting to make the Presi- 
dency of to-day what it is. 

The human factors must not be neglected. Some Presidents 
made the office respectable, even honorable ; others belittled it. 
An axe weighing seven pounds is one thing in the hands of a 
strong and skillful woodchopper weighing one hundred and 
ninety pounds, and a different thing in the hands of a frail 
amateur, who can perhaps scarcely lift it. Some men have 
swung the Presidency; but most men — to change the figure — 
have swung in it. Let us trace the record and note a few 
main points. 

The Five Revolutions Upon Our Soil. — 1 776. First of all, 
we must see that the country has had five revolutions since 1 774 
and three since 1789; beside several other crises. The first 
revolution was frankly called by the men of the times "the 
Revolutionary War." An age that spoke softly and walked 
tenderly rechristened it "war of independence." The people 
of the times split into two factions, — for the existing social 
order, and against. Those for it enlisted the British Crown, 
Parliament, army, navy and Hessian and Indian allies upon 
their side. Those against it enlisted France and her throne, 
army and navy; and from all Europe military adventurers 
flocked to the rebel standard. The standpatters and loyalists 
lost; the insurgents and rebels won, exiled their enemies and 
appropriated their estates. This civil war or revolution was 
a large part of the life-experiences of five Presidents, and in- 
volved slightly two others, the last to be named, — Washing- 
ton, John Adams, Jefferson, Monroe, and Jackson and J. 
Q. Adams, then boys. The social war uncovered these 
men to fame. They were leaders and beneficiaries of dis- 
content. 

The Constitution. — The second revolution saw the Fed- 
eral Constitution adopted. This was a device of the commer- 
cial classes to strengthen themselves. For six years, after 
Yorktown, they clamored that the central government was too 
weak, — meaning too weak to help them. The predatory rich 



i6o PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

desired to get on faster than the federation of sovereign 
States permitted; and their new Constitution put them in the 
saddle to ride the poor/ This second revolution involved 
Washington and Madison directly. It was the opportunity 
of the strong to cinch the gains of the first revolution : in a 
sense, it was a counter-revolution. 

The election of Jefferson as President was a mild protest 
against the extreme views and against the extremists of the 
second revolution ; against Hamilton the monarchist and John 
Adams the centralist. 

The Invasion of the Democratic West. — The third 
revolution came in with "Old Hero," the man on horseback. 
By the ballot, the poor of the frontiers and of the cities took 
possession of government, and enthroned "Old Hickory" as 
"boss," "idol," President, The new official bureaucracy went 
out as the old had gone out in 1776. 

"The panic of 1837" was the natural result. Society was 
seething, — dregs, body of good liquor, scum and froth all 
a-working. 

The War of Secession. — The fourth revolution was the 
Rebellion as the North styled it, the Secession, as the South 
declared. Northern historians are now trying to fasten upon 
it the name "Civil War," while Southern historians more 
properly style it "War between the States." From end to end 
of the land, it turned and overturned men, families, com- 
munities and classes. All values changed. The Federal Gov- 
ernment became a National Government. The States became 
subordinate governments, contributory to the Central Gov- 
ernment. The bankers who had gone down in 1837 became 
the supreme commercial class. The National Debt arose as 
an institution sacred to banking needs. Interest drained from 
labor by government in direct tax, in itself fraud, became the 
river of life to government-dependent banks, — the whole 
system in any view of universal, exact and uniform justice 
constituted the crime of law-made inequality among citizens 
and special privilege to a few at the cost of the many. 

Government Versus Big Business. — The fifth revolution 
came with Roosevelt when at last retreating from the goads 

^This aim of theirs was in part frustrated by the Bill of Rights Amend- 
ments. See pp. 68 et seq. 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS i6i 

of the poor and of the dedining middle classes, the National 
Government undertook "to bust the trusts" and to let the 
people rule. It has been a poor, ineffective, abortive, wind- 
birth revolution; but it rumbles yet. 

Government versus big business is a case before the bar of 
public opinion that raises more questions than one; and will 
be decisive of more issues than one. 

How Various Presidents Affected the Office. — 
Washington was greatly embarrassed throughout his Presi- 
dency because so generally the men invited to take high office 
declined it. His "boy," as he called Hamilton, was his most 
useful man. One high officer defaulted for a few hundred 
thousand, and Washington condoned the offence, letting him 
quietly disappear. His action was, of course, a crime accord- 
ing to the common law. But he believed that government is a 
good in itself whose prestige is weakened by revelations of 
the vices and errors of human nature. A hundred years later 
an ardent Republican Senator, George F. Hoar of Massachu- 
setts, said that the failure of Congress then to impeach Wash- 
ington was good warrant why President Grant should not be 
impeached for condoning the much less serious offences of 
Secretary Belknap. Verily, 

"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with 
sin." 

Washington has passed into history as an efficient President. 
At least, he caused the doubtful machinery of government to 
work. For his assistance, he had his Capital during most of 
his administrations in Philadelphia; and Pennsylvania was 
the first colony to ratify the Constitution and the most har- 
monious in its support. Philadelphia was still the largest city 
in America ; and its merchants were the richest. 

In this Presidency, the office won the power to remove 
subordinates without reference to the Senate. 

John Adams made the Presidency powerful but hateful. 

Jefferson showed how the Presidency, relying upon public 
opinion, has latent powers that lift it above the Constitution. 
He made it a great influence against war and against the 
aggrandizement of the commercial classes and for the liberty 
of individual citizens. Virtually, he made the Presidency the 
government save for the Supreme Court ; and by refusing to 



1 62 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

obey a summons of that Court, he made it in a measure 
independent. 

Madison scarcely wielded the powers of the Presidency; but 
Monroe showed how a Presidential message may be of vast 
import to this nation and to the human race. The power of 
the Monroe Doctrine is Presidential, not personal. The office 
is usually much bigger than the man. 

J. Q. Adams restored the Presidency to its prestige in Fed- 
eralist days before the Jeffersonian dynasty democratized it. 
He exerted its higher powers of educating and exhorting the 
people and of centralizing the government; he did not teach 
and persuade as Jefferson did. Yet he avoided the extreme 
moves of his father. 

Jackson ignored direct orders of the Supreme Court, saying : 
"Let John Marshall enforce his own decisions." In a sense, 
he vulgarized but he did not weaken the Presidency. In a 
contest with Congress, he showed that his Cabinet was not 
composed of Congressional servants. In striking down the 
Bank, with its shareholders among Senators and Congress- 
men, he made the Presidency terrible to the predacious rich 
but helpful to little banks everywhere and beautiful to the 
poor. "Old Hero" did indeed wear two aspects. But his 
handling of the office was inconsistent though powerful. 

Van Buren showed how strong the Presidency can be when 
carefully handled for a few purposes only. His defeat by 
Harrison showed how risky it is for a President to offend a 
class that controls newspapers and is willing to spend money 
to defeat him, — the speculative business class. 

Tyler engineered the taking of Texas ; engineered it under 
orders, office-manager style. His administration is peculiarly 
worth studying because it reveals the skeleton of the Presi- 
dential powers not clothed with the virile flesh of a real Chief 
Magistrate. For the same reason, the administrations of 
Buchanan, of Johnson, and of Grant are worth studying; 
but not equally so, for the times were sadly out of joint, 
whereas the social conditions in the days of Tyler were fairly 
normal. 

Polk showed the President as an unconstitutional war-lord 
and as a land-getter. But he worked with violence and with 
haste, and not in the spirit of Jefferson and of Madison. A 
Polk instead of a Taft in 191 1 would probably have taken 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS 163 

upper Mexico when Diaz fell; and instead of a Buchanan, a 
Polk in i860 would either have marched out with South Caro- 
lina or struck her down at once. 

Taylor and Fillmore by their contrast showed how much 
personality does count in the Presidency. Fillmore signed 
what Taylor would have vetoed, and even threatened not to 
execute. Taylor stood above and against Congress, Fillmore 
below and yet with it. Possibly, a President should be an 
errand-boy for the people; but certainly he should not be a 
clerk of Congress. 

Pierce showed how an agreeable gentleman, not too steadily 
or greatly intoxicated with strong drink, may Hve pleasantly 
in the White House while perdition is afoot. And Buchanan 
showed how a man competent to do highly important work 
well may fail in a crisis. Tact is delightful ; but force is some- 
times necessary. Having previous knowledge of the Dred 
Scott decision, he should have forced its reduction to straight 
and necessary law. He made other errors. The Presidency 
itself became a cause of public worriment. And the inter- 
regnum proved fatal. 

Contrasts of Weak and Strong Men. — The value of 
personalities in the Presidency can be quickly realized upon 
the supposition that instead of this succession in 1851-1861: 



Fillmore 
we had men like 
J. Q. Adams 


Pierce 
Jackson 


Buchanan 
Taylor 


or 

Washington 


Monroe 


Polk 



Lincoln showed the President for a time acting as com- 
mander-in-chief of army and navy above the Constitution. 
Virtually, for years he was dictator, but not in forma et in 
modo but only by persuasion and many a device. To say that 
he excelled in tact and in persistence is to contrast him at 
once with Buchanan, who had tact but not persistence, 
and with J. Q. Adams, who had no tact but did have persist- 
ence. 

It is useless to say that Winfield Scott was right and that we 
should have let the "wayward sisters" depart in peace. They 
wanted Maryland and Kentucky and Missouri to depart with 



1 64 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

them. They meant to have the historic Capital. They de- 
parted in arms. Among them were many who boasted that, 
after estabhshing the Confederacy, they would take the rest 
of the States for provinces. In short, the war-lust was alive 
in the hearts of men. The assassination of Lincoln is ample 
evidence of the fury. 

To call him a "Constitutional President" is absurd. The 
Constitution was repeatedly and constantly violated. To call 
him a failure is equally absurd. His side won. But to call all 
his actions and all the statutes of Congress from 1861 to 1865 
wise and right, to make them sacred, is a crime against twen- 
tieth century Americanism. Not even he himself thought so. 
It was not the worst of his qualities that he had no pride to 
make him deny error. He was shifty and often weak and 
often ignorant; but for all that, it is unpleasant to think how 
much worse any man like J. Q. Adams, who was not shifty 
or weak or ignorant, would have been. In his case, the end 
crowned the work and the workman. He supplied the need 
of the times. We cannot wholly regret that he "made a 
monkey of Taney" by ignoring his habeas corpus papers. 
Taney deserved worse. 

Johnson resisted wholly unhistorical and probably uncon- 
stitutional encroachment by Congress upon the Presidency. 
It was heroic even though it was temperamental. And it 
saved the South just enough to let local resistance develop. 
The ofifences of Congress were many and essentially criminal 
in things both small and great. 

Folly and weakness had led to crime on crime; and then 
came Grant, whose motto was "To me and to my family and 
to my friends belong the offices, the revenues, the profits and 
the privileges and the glory. I saved the government and the 
nation. My price is to do as I please." Never before or 
since, did the Presidency fall so low or seem so mean and base. 
The predatory rich, who had stayed at home during the War 
and grown richer and had taught disciples, came into the own 
of many others. Not yet has the National Government been 
cleansed of Grantism. He was the last of the Presidents who 
could nominate all executive officers. Grantism led to civil 
service reform, which limits as well as relieves the Presidency 
greatly. 

Hayes showed the Presidency as a bone of contention, a 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS 165 

prize of frauds and of legal quibbles. For all his nice ways, 
he could never redeem his title. Because of the Tilden-Hayes 
contest, the way to reach the Presidency was defined anew. He 
was the merely political rich man elevated to a comfortable 
and honorable first magistracy. 

Garfield showed the prize-of -struggle feature of the Presi- 
dency. The struggle cost him and ourselves his life. It is 
not only tragic but also richly suggestive. His murder gave 
greater energy to civil service reform. "Dark horses," com- 
promise candidates, seldom make good and successful Presi- 
dents. The nation is working out a more rigid way to choose 
candidates than the hurrah, log-rolling convention.^ 

Arthur was the fine gentleman on show at the public cost. 
Certain of his vetoes made Congress give that second thought 
which is usually of higher wisdom. 

Cleveland was President. In part, fortunately, and in part, 
unfortunately, bankers had his ear and the commercial classes 
all his sympathies. He made the veto-power a flail for the 
Congressional threshing-floor. Likewise, unfortunately, his 
intelligence was inferior to his resistance of will. But, all 
told, with his financial measures good and bad and civil service 
reform he ranks wide, if not high. Assume a choice for a 
domestic war period and after Lincoln, surely Cleveland would 
be the man for the times. Just as Lincoln would have no 
international war, unless attacked under conditions permitting 
resistance only, so Cleveland was no Polk to pick a war, and 
no Madison or McKinley to let it come. The Venezuela mes- 
sage put silence upon the British hint of war. 

Benjamin Harrison was a Presidential functionary like 
others who count but little. 

Under McKinley, things happened to him. He made the 
Presidency also the Governorship of Colonies and Depen- 
dencies over seas. He was unwilling emperor and the scarcely 
willing servant of the commercial classes, who being always 
on the move are prominent like ramblers in the woods. Many 
things count against him. What counts in his favor is that 
he did what the democracy of this country really wished at 
the time. He represented popular feeling rather than higher 
intelligence. 

Using the Presidency like a noisy, powerful steam-mowing 
machine, Roosevelt reaped the harvest. Corruption that 

^See p. 169, infra. 



1 66 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

started under Lincoln and rioted under Grant had renewed 
growth under McKinley. The people murmured that there 
were too many tares in the wheat. As meddlesome as J. Q. 
Adams, as mettlesome as Jackson, as anxious to please the 
people as Lincoln and McKinley, more of a preacher even than 
Jefferson and book-read beyond Hayes, intending to be honest, 
yet not willing to offend the plutocracy, which is the power 
within Republicanism, he failed partly from want of clarity 
of vision, partly from want of concentration of activities, 
partly from insufficient strength of moral character, and partly 
from inner misconceptions of the Presidential office and of 
true governmental functions; but it was a failure with many 
a useful lesson. It was in fact not so much failure as defeat, 
self-admitted but not with whole-souled frankness. 

And Taft, who is a judge rather than a legislator, gleans 
after Roosevelt. And the whirlwind is upon them and us. 

Peace and War.— Of our twenty-six Presidents, four have 
been War-Presidents, not to count the many minor Indian and 
other wars upon their hands. These four were Madison, Polk, 
Lincoln, and McKinley. Only the last War was wholly ex- 
ternal in its causes; but the middle two were internal. In 
popular history, even in history as reflected in these pages, 
such large space is devoted to war as to give an impression 
that a battle is more important than any other event in his- 
tory. Yet in truth the terrific battle of Gettysburg was no 
more important than the Dred Scott decision, which upon its 
merits as a crisis is not less important than the entire War 
between the States. 

In consequence of this interest in battle, which as a spectacle 
appeals to the inferior sensational qualities of man, we have 
failed to see what service has been rendered to us by peace- 
Presidents, and especially by such as have kept us out of war. 
Upon the record, it is entirely clear that the disposition of the 
President has been a vital factor in the issues of peace and 
of war. The most striking instances are in the contrast 
that Polk made a war with Mexico and Taft kept out of 
war. 

Not that life in itself is all-precious. On the contrary, 
most Presidents have held their own lives cheap, as their war 
records show, but that war should be obsolete as blood-letting 
in medicine and duelling upon the field of honor to settle 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS 167 

quarrels. There are better ways to spend life, and to risk it, 
than in seeking the lives of others, for might is not right; and 
wrong thrives upon physical force and brute anger. 

The Presidency and the Average Man. — The Presi- 
dency is the most influential office in America, and the man 
who is President may easily be the most influential man. And 
yet in speaking of the most famous, useful and able Ameri- 
cans, we seldom mention more than two of the Presidents. 
Few men would agree as to who have been the ten or a dozen 
most famous, useful and valuable Americans, and none could 
agree as to a hundred. In the smaller list, we might place 
Franklin, Emerson, Irving, Longfellow, Poe, Lincoln, Edison, 
Morse, Webster, Horace Mann, Washington, Calhoun, and 
Beecher. But two Presidents are in the list, though one more 
might have been President but for his age. Compared with 
such as these, how slight has been the contribution of most 
of the Presidents to American culture and civilization! And 
yet when other Presidents are compared with Lincoln, how 
clear it is that we are not yet utilizing the values of this high 
office! 

The real service of Lincoln was not executive but his 
revelation of the meaning and nature of common humanity, 
his own deep and true concern in the welfare of the average 
man. He was essentially such a man. It is for this average 
man, for the father and the mother, for the youth and the 
maiden and the child that the government exists. And when 
we ask what the average President has really done to make life 
better and richer for this average man, we see some things 
more clearly than we otherwise do. 

It is when we so regard the matter that the services of Van 
Buren as Governor and as President become so admirable to 
the view. 

For a President is a main part of this nation's fate. 

Had we elected Bryan instead of Taft in 1908, there would 
have been by 1912 an end to the high protective tariff system, 
with its robbed consumers, its barracked wage-slaves, its legis- 
lative attorneys, its factory-lords with guaranteed reasonable 
profits. 

A President is a mover of this nation's life. 

Had not McKinley hearkened to Colonel John Jacob Astor 
and made Theodore Roosevelt Assistant Secretary of the 



1 68 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

Navy because he "needed the salary," which was false, though, 
of course, even a Roosevelt must seem poor to an Astor, 
Dewey would not have gone to Manila; and the Filipinos 
would not be American near-citizens. 

In which case, our kith and kin would not be soldiers, clerks 
and school teachers in the Far Pacific. 

A Test of Greatness. — The measure of a man as com- 
pared with his office may be taken after he has left office. His 
private life is a fair test of his real character and calibre. So 
measured, Jefferson, Madison, J. Q. Adams, Jackson, Van 
Buren, Benjamin Harrison, and Cleveland were great men; 
but John Adams, Monroe, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, 
and Johnson were mediocrities or less, — in old age, at any 
rate. Hayes was good, if not great. Whether Roosevelt will 
or will not make "the fair ending" required by Plato before 
the man is finally measured is hid in the future. 

What Shall We Do with Former Presidents? — A 
candid review of all these Presidents raises all the old ques- 
tions. Should a President be eligible for reelection? Should 
the term be lengthened to six years? Shall the two-term tra- 
dition be abandoned? And shall the former President be 
given an office or a pension? If an office, what one? If a 
pension, how much? 

Not every President can be a J. Q. Adams, though probably 
almost any President could find some Congressional District 
that would welcome him. The lives herein are rich in sugges- 
tions of what to do and what to avoid. 

The Dangerous Interregnum. — Constitutional amend- 
ments are not matters to be lightly considered ; they are almost 
impossible to secure. 

To the long interregnum between election and inauguration, 
we owe at least one calamity. Without it, the War between 
the States would have been a different affair. But the inter- 
regnum is always unfavorable for business. 

Presidential nominations should be prior to June 30. 

The elections should be upon the second Tuesday in Sep- 
tember. 

The inauguration should take place upon the second Tues- 
day in October; and 

Congress should convene upon the third Tuesday of the 
same month. 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS 169 

Conventions Will Follow "King Caucus" into Obli- 
vion. — We shall hold in June, 1912, among the last of the 
conventions for the nominations of Presidential candidates. 
"King Caucus" was strangled to death by the rise of the Jack- 
sonian democracy and of the Liberty Party, "Mob-Conven- 
tion" is being strangled now by the rise of Insurgency. Whether 
we like it or not, we are to have more democracy, not less. 
Time is doing the work, — time and trouble, and their child, 
thought. The Presidential primary or its equivalent will come 
within this second decade of the twentieth century. Indeed, 
it has already come in Nebraska, in Oregon, in New Jersey. 

Presidents selected by primaries may revive the traditions 
of the first seven Presidents. 

The Fad of Residence in Certain States. — ^While 
there will always be a tendency to take men who live near the 
center of population and in politically doubtful States, the fad 
of favoring the already "favorite sons" of New York or Ohio 
will pass away. The politicians of these States have learned 
the ropes. In certain other States, ''Nil admirari" is written 
upon the foreheads of every citizen. Such States will never 
name Presidential candidates. A State full of carping critics 
and devoid of friendly neighbors cannot develop great men, 
for the great man is simply the leader of his group, — as Van 
Buren led the Albany Regency and Lincoln the Illinois Whigs 
and later Republicans. The great man in politics and in 
statesmanship rises with his group. The Ishmaelites are no 
nation. 

One reason why Ohio and New York politicians are a supe- 
rior class is because they do work together. 

"Right" Men Not Needed. — Those with axes to grind 
will continue to assert that the all-important requirement is 
being "right," — right upon the tariff or upon sound money 
or upon some other ephemeral issue or for his "friends." But 
when we look over the men of the past, we discover that what 
we esteem the best Presidents for is not their specific deeds 
and policies but their competence, dignity and honesty. Few 
men can tell definitely what any of these men did or believed; 
but many know their public characters and general performance. 
It is a fair test as to what one thinks of these various Presi- 
dents, to ask, — ^Would I really like to see So-and-so President 



I70 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS. 

again ? On this test, how few would now be recalled from — 
let us hope — their pleasant sphere ! 

It is highly important that we should choose men with no 
disposition to involve the nation in struggles over matters not 
yet in issue. The Presidency is a magistracy, not a moot 
court, not a pulpit. It adjudicates issues and executes de- 
cisions. As Solon said: "The man who in office transcends 
or would transcend the laws is or would be a tyrant," So 
also he who translates personal opinion into "public welfare." 

Only laws and living issues concern the Presidency. 

The Gerrymandered Nation. — The nation is gerryman- 
dered in the interest of the North Atlantic States. As the 
Southerners, before the War, with such hateful clearness in 
Northern eyes, amply showed, the tariff is a device for popu- 
lating the North Atlantic States, and as we now know, with 
inferior races. The Electoral College counts, in addition to 
the Senatorial allowance, about four votes for every million 
voters. From Chicago eastward, above Washington, the 
average State has 25,000 square miles of land, while the 
average of all the other States is 70,000 square miles. The 
eleven North Atlantic States would make normally about four 
States. This gives to them an artificial advantage in the 
Senate and in the Electoral College of 14 votes. Their popu- 
lation is mostly foreign-born, and not half their voters know 
anything worth while about American institutions. This is 
not true of the situation in the West and in the South. 

Public Office Not to be a Private Opportunity or a 
Personal Reward. — Was not the Presidency itself in truth 
anti-climax for the General who won Vicksburg and Rich- 
mond? He must have known that it was. Some day, we 
Americans may learn not only that "a public office is a public 
trust" but also that, before one another and posterity, a politi- 
cal office is solely for the general welfare. Public office must 
not be a private opportunity of any kind whatsoever. We 
have no right to use a public office either to help a poor man 
or even to honor a great one. An office is not charity but a 
service ; it is not even an honor but a labor. Some day, we 
may see these truths. When we do, we will not nominate a 
Harrison in order to win a political campaign, nor will we 
elect a Grant in order to honor him to his own at least partial 



CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS 171 

dishonor. Perhaps in true charity, we may say in excuse that 
he did not understand the issues involved; nor did we. 

Government in Impasse. — We have created, and we are 
now operating, a wonderful contrivance of checks and bal- 
ances and limited powers. In consequence, responsibility is 
dissipated, being everywhere and therefore nowhere. Of 
course, we have had progress in several ways, — in area, in 
wealth, in numbers, in the arts. We have also had wreckage 
under Jackson, under Lincoln, and under Roosevelt. But by 
the time that we have had trouble enough, we shall see that 
government with us is in impasse, save when the Constitution 
is overridden. And then often we break the impasse and go 
worse wrong than before. As for the Presidency itself, if we 
wish to improve it, there is only one way, — that is, to become 
enlightened regarding its powers and limitations and its in- 
cumbents, and then with a resolute public will, displayed by 
courageous individuals, to proceed to change it. And this is 
the one final and sufficient defence of democracy that it makes 
many citizens intelligent and efficient and strong of will 
because the sovereignty is in the people, — that is, in ourselves 
as individuals. Society is composed of and consists in men. 
A social duty is simply a convenient term. Responsibility is 
personal. 

The Friendly Support of the President. — But perhaps 
what most needs to be said regarding the President is that as 
citizens, we should always give his actions and official opinions 
the benefit of any doubt. There are but few instances in 
which a citizen is absolved from his allegiance to the President 
because of some "higher law." And in most matters, indeed in 
nearly all matters great and small, we may be sure that the 
President has at least as much information as we have and as 
much good will to do right. 

Party spirit and individual self-reliance should not proceed 
so far as to prevent all of us Americans from looking upon 
each President as entitled to our loyal support in conduct and 
even in opinion and, after that, deserving of respect as one 
whom a majority of us have delighted to honor in government 
above all others. 

Needlessly Early Deaths. — ^At fifty-six years of age, the 
average expectation of life is fourteen years. The average 
President in constitution has been far above the average man ; 



17^ PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

but since Jackson, this mythical average President has survived 
his first inauguration only ten years. Since Taylor, only four 
men have survived over ten years after their first inauguration, 
— Pierce sixteen years, Grant and Hayes the same, and Cleve- 
land twenty-five. The Presidency certainly shortened the 
lives of W. H. Harrison, of Polk, of Taylor, and of Arthur. 
With its enormous powers and duties, it is too arduous an 
office even for physical giants. Both Lincoln and McKinley 
were in wretched health when assassinated after four years' 
service. One feature of the remedy is decentralization. Civil 
service reform has helped. Since 1789, no man ever left the 
Presidency in better health than at his first inauguration. Yet 
the laborer is worthy of his health as well as of his hire. 

A Closer View of the Presidency. — The remedy, then, 
is consideration of the facts as they are, — of the facts as they 
seem to the relatives and intimate friends of nearly every 
President. We have no more right to overwork a President 
than to overw'ork a day-laborer ; and no more right to imperil 
his life in time of peace (or needlessly in war) than that of 
any other citizen. 

Reduce the duties, not the authority. Double the Cabinet. 
Enhance the prestige so that the person of the President be 
as sacred as that of every other citizen. Cease the strife over 
what, properly considered, are passing details of government. 
Make the Presidency a symbol not of victory but of magis- 
tracy. Keep on choosing men whose untimely end increases 
our sorrow. And surround the alien and the foreigner with 
forces that will compel him to live in the free air of an equal 
Americanism. Most of all, devise laws that will encourage 
native births and country homes. 

The ballot is not a lie. It counts to-day-as never before. 
The Presidency is indeed the sword of our liberties ; the courts 
the shield ; and Congress a linked court of mail. 

The Institutions are right. Whatever faults there may be 
In the working, are the faults of ourselves. They are built 
for freedom and secure it in self-government. 

"For He that worketh high and wise, 
Nor pauses in His plan, 
Will take the sun out of the skies 
Ere freedom out of man." 

— Emerson, Concord Ode. 



THE CABINET 173 

CHAPTER HI 
The Cabinet 

Constitutional basis — tripartite government system — a new kind of Cabi- 
net — the rights of Cabinet Secretaries — Secretaries and Congress — 
the Cabinet in session — styles of Cabinets — prestige of secretaryships 
— their prominence — official rank of Secretaries — costs of the various 
departments — their functions — principles of Cabinet selection — geog- 
raphical distribution of Cabinet memberships — an unrecognized and 
unutilized region — vi^hence come the Secretaries? — geographical dis- 
tribution of Supreme Court membership — politics — difficulty of the 
several departments — experts as Secretaries — requisite qualifications — 
resignations and replacements — qualities of various Cabinets — long 
service in office Presidents and their Secretaries — the men of to-day — 
makers of great Cabinets — Cabinet enlargement as proposed in several 
quarters. 

Constitutional Basis. — In the Constitutional Convention 
of 1787, there was much discussion as to provisions for a 
council to the President. The adoption of the principle of a 
tripartite government, — of separation of the legislative, the 
judicial and the executive functions, — greatly changed the re- 
lations, both theoretical and practical, of the titular head of 
the sovereignty with all others, including the executive coun- 
cillors. In the colonies, the governors had been assisted by 
councils, who, however, usually possessed both judicial and 
legislative attributes and considered these superior to their 
executive attributes. The governors were subject to Crown 
and Parliament and sometimes also to proprietors so that in 
fact the correspondence of governorship with the new Presi- 
dency was but slight. In a way, many of the framers of the 
government supposed that the Presidency would be subordi- 
nate to the Senate. 

The results of the discussion as to council and heads of 
executive departments are to be found in the text of the 
instrument as finally adopted. Article I, section 6, paragraph 2, 
recites that "No senator or representative, shall, during the 
time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office 
under the authority of the United States, which shall have 



174 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been 
increased, during such time; and no person holding any office 
under the United States shall be a member of either House 
during his continuance in office." Article II, section 2, con- 
tains the provisions that the President "may require the 
opinion, in writing, of the principal officer of each of the 
executive departments, upon any subject relative to the duties 
of their respective offices"; and that "he shall nominate and 
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint 
ambassadors, . . . and all other officers of the United 
States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided 
for and shall be established by law : but the Congress may by 
law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they 
think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or 
in the heads of departments." 

Tripartite Government System. — By these provisions, 
the Cabinet system of England was made impossible. No 
man might be at once Secretary of State and Chairman of 
the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Senate, or Treasurer 
of the United States and Chairman of the Committee on 
Appropriations in the House of Representatives, or Chief Jus- 
tice and a member of the House or Senate. The provisions 
in the first sentences of the first three articles of the Constitu- 
tion, "All legislative powers shall be granted" ; "The executive 
power shall be vested" ; and "The judicial power of the United 
States shall be vested" were made effective by this cutting of 
Representatives and Senators away from all executive and 
judicial service. Fearing the anarchy of a plural executive, 
the Constitution put the heads of departments under the Presi- 
dent by authorizing him to require written opinions of his 
"principal officers," and by making his naming and consent 
essential to their appointment. True, the Congressmen might 
advise the nominations and veto the proposed appointments, 
but the President was rather better than coordinate, for he 
could name one man after another, or even keep sending in 
the same name. 

A New Kind of Cabinet. — There had been a strong 
minority in favor of creating a Council of State for the Presi- 
dent. One plan was to make it consist of "the Chief Justice 
and the heads of the domestic and foreign departments of 
war, finance and marine." The fact that such a Council was 



THE CABINET 175 

not created in the Constitution was cited by George Mason of 
Virginia as one reason why he could not sign and support it. 
He imagined that the President would be an autocrat, and did 
not foresee the coming of a Cabinet plural for deliberation, 
single for action, democratic yet efficient. 

An executive of a different kind from any that history had 
known was established by the Constitution; and was put into 
successful operation by President Washington, supported by 
John Adams, Vice-President, and as he thought thereby "Sena- 
tor-at-Large," They used these three definite, though incom- 
plete. Constitutional provisions. 

The Rights of Cabinet Secretaries. — Step by step, stage 
by stage, through a century and a quarter, what with statutes 
and with court decisions, with mutual understandings, with 
all manner of experiments and with hard political fighting, a 
place has been located and delimited for the Secretary of De- 
partment in his triangular space between his Department, his 
President and Congress. 

The first difficulty is to determine how much a Secretary 
can really know of his Department and do within it. The 
high example is that of Abraham Lincoln who said that he 
signed most of the documents handed to him by Secretaries 
and others without examination because he had no time to 
examine them. But even a Secretary cannot personally know 
much regarding more than a few of the affairs whose course 
he directs and determines. The solution of the problem is that 
a Secretary of Department should do what he can as well as 
he can and gracefully depart either when his President does 
or when his President desires or when he himself no longer 
cares to hold office. No Secretary really directs his Depart- 
ment, though he may direct some of its business and even 
control most of it. The direction, so far as the vast and often 
overwhelming business of a Department is really directed, is 
done by the permanent Committees of Congress. 

The situation is this : A Secretary may not volunteer advice 
either to President or to Congress, but when asked, may 
counsel with President, and with Senators and Representa- 
tives. At least once a year, he is called before the Committees 
to give information as to his budget for the next year. Usually, 
some of his assistants and division chiefs accompany him. 

Secretaries and Congress. — But Senators and Repre- 



176 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

sentatives do not hesitate to call upon a Secretary at his execu- 
tive office or even at his home whenever they see fit. They 
call also upon his division and bureau chiefs, asking questions 
and giving advice freely. Congress represents the will of 
democracy; and its members act accordingly. 

Especially with reference to the Treasury Department, there 
has been a running fight to determine whether or not a Secre- 
tary may submit, even under Congressional orders, a report 
direct to Congress without its passing through the hands of 
the President for addition, for subtraction, and for other edi- 
torial revision. The House of Representatives with its Con- 
stitutional right to originate revenue measures has even tried 
to get the Treasury Department out from the supervision of 
the President; and both Houses, seeing the political oppor- 
tunities of the Postoffice and of the Interior Department, 
have cast longing eyes upon these also. But to-day the Presi- 
dent is in easy control, thanks mainly to Andrew Jackson and 
to Andrew Johnson. 

A Secretary may do but few things without responsibility 
to the President. Even where a statute specifically designates 
that a Secretary act, the Supreme Court has held that in so 
doing he is responsible to the President whose orders he must 
follow. The only exception is where the Secretary acts in a 
ministerial duty without discretion in accordance with statute. 

The Cabinet in Session. — The collegiate character of 
these Secretaryships, by which they are converted into a 
Cabinet, has resulted as much from the pressure of public 
opinion as from Presidential choice. For his first two years, 
Jackson held no Cabinet meetings. But in recent times, the 
Cabinet meeting, weekly and even semi-weekly, has been the 
regular custom. How much of the business of each separate 
Department has been discussed at the general meeting has 
depended upon the state of the public business, the qualities of 
the Cabinet members, and the character and the temporary 
mood of the President himself. This Cabinet session, taking 
two or three hours at least out of the working week of each 
Secretary, is one of the several valid reasons for not taking 
specialists as heads of departments. Since always the times 
change fast, since often health breaks down from politics and 
work and from the Washington winter and summer varieties 
of weather (spring and fall being favorable), and since some- 



THE CABINET 177 

times the pocketbook needs replenishment, for the social de- 
mands upon Secretaries are great, resignations from the Cabi- 
net have seldom been of more than passing moment. Secre- 
taries resign sometimes to accept European or other foreign 
missions, sometimes to become Senators, sometimes to enter 
actively into business or law practice, sometimes to prosecute 
campaigns for the Presidency, and sometimes to retire quietly 
in order to recover their health. Their health record, like 
that of Presidents and of Senators and unlike that of Justices, 
has been bad. A Secretaryship of State finished Daniel 
Webster. 

Styles of Cabinets. — Our Presidents have chosen origin- 
ally or made over by reconstruction four several styles of 
Cabinets, viz. : 

The all-star Cabinet. 

The half -star Cabinet. 

The one-star Cabinet. 

The no-star Cabinet. 

The terms must not be construed too strictly and literally. 
Washington meant to have an all-star Cabinet, and almost suc- 
ceeded. But the small salaries ($3000 a year and that much 
to but two of the four positions) could not overcome State 
affection, distrust of the new government, and jealousy and 
dislike of himself. Polk nearly succeeded. Lincoln did 
succeed; Hayes also. 

It takes a very able President to choose such a Cabinet ; to 
get such men to accept; and then to manage them. The 
qualities of a Cabinet tend to lower with every change, for the 
obvious reason that to be a first choice of a President for an 
office is an honor, but to be a second or third is otherwise. 
And yet several reconstructed Cabinets were better than the 
original ones, — including those of John Adams, Jefferson, 
Monroe, Jackson, Buchanan, Cleveland (second term), and 
McKinley. 

The half -star Cabinet has been the style most in evidence. 

The one-star or Cabinet-with-a-Premier style has had sev- 
eral examples, — the Cabinets of John Quincy Adams with 
Henry Clay as Secretary of State, of William Henry Har- 
rison with Daniel Webster In the same office, of Fillmore, also 
with Webster until his last illness and death, and of Garfield 
with James G. Blaine. 



178 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

The nostar Cabinet has a dozen examples and at least one 
strong argument in its favor; its members are selected to 
work and to work together. 

An all-star Cabinet might perhaps fail and become a no- 
star Cabinet and a no-star Cabinet might succeed and become 
an all-star Cabinet; but American history has yet to see an 
illustration of either course of events. 

The happiest of all Cabinets, that of Pierce, had no stars 
of first magnitude; but it had one Secretary of second magni- 
tude, Jefferson Davis, and another Secretary of the third mag- 
nitude, William L. Marcy, the other five Secretaries being 
invisible to the non-official, non-telescopic eye. It was a two- 
star Cabinet. 

So many Cabinets were unhappy that it is perhaps unsafe 
to call that of Johnson the unhappiest of all. Of its seventeen 
various members, in seven Secretaryships, one was a star of 
the second magnitude, Seward, another was of fourth magni- 
tude, Evarts, and two more were of sixth magnitude, McCul- 
loch and Stanton, the rest being invisible. It was viciously 
interfered with by Congress and unskilfully handled by the 
President; otherwise, it might have made as good a record as 
the average Cabinet. In quality, it was distinctly superior to 
the Cabinet of Grant, among whose thirty-three different mem- 
bers just one may be remembered as entirely honorable and 
highly competent, Ebenezer R. Hoar of Massachusetts, who 
served as Attorney-General just sixty- four weeks; even he, 
however, was not a star even of sixth magnitude. The only 
star, in a popular and political sense, a real star of second 
magnitude, was William Tecumseh Sherman who held office 
five weeks as Secretary of War, a position for which he was in 
no real sense competent, as he himself knew and said. Other 
Cabinets may have had as pitiful scoundrels as General Wil- 
liam W. Belknap, but no other such scoundrel was ever so 
thoroughly exposed. 

Prestige of Secretaryships. — The standing of the 
various Departments differs greatly. A statesman under sixty 
years of age would probably resign a United States Senator- 
ship to be Secretary of State in a new Cabinet; and might 
resign to be Secretary of the Treasury. If he came from a 
small State not in the Northeast, he might resign even to be- 
come Secretary of War. But any Secretary over sixty years 



THE CABINET 179 

of age would probably resign any portfolio and any Secretary 
of whatever age would probably resign any fortfolio save 
that of State in order to be a United States Senator. A minor 
portfolio is about equal in grade with a State governorship 
save in the great States of the Northeast. 

The prominence of the Departments is not synonymous with 
the prestige of the Secretaryships. The Attorney-General 
figures much in the news, but his Cabinet standing is of only 
middle grade. The Postmaster General also figures in the 
news, but his portfolio is without prestige;. Agriculture is 
prominent, but the Secretaryship is one of the lowest in public 
esteem. 

The rank is : 

State, Treasury, War, Navy, Justice, Interior, Postoffice, 
Agriculture, Commerce-and-Labor. 

In times of peace, because of public interest in certain 
Bureaus, the prominence is now usually : 

Justice, Postoffice, Interior, Commerce-and-Labor, Treas- 
ury, War, Navy, Agriculture, State. 

This, of course, differs from day to day and with the inter- 
ests of individuals and of localities. Rural districts would 
advance Agriculture four steps, perhaps five ; commercial cities 
would advance Treasury two. International merchants and 
bankers would place State and Treasury far to the front. 

But to-day among all intelligent citizens Justice and Post- 
office are secure near the head in prominence. 

Official Rank of Secretaries. — The nine Departments 
are of very unequal costs and expenditures and of numbers 
of employees ; but their official rank is unconcerned with these 
facts and depends solely upon the historical order of their 
establishment. 

This rank determines the seating of the Secretaries at the 
Cabinet table in the meeting room of the executive ell in the 
White House. The table is seated in this fashion: 



i8o 



PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 



President 



c3 



S 4) 
to "»^ 

o 






o c 
SO 



^ 



Clerks and Stenographers 
when summoned 

Thus the seats of honor on the right and left of the Presi- 
dent fall to the Secretaries of State and of the Treasury. The 
dates of the first appointments of these heads of departments 
are as follows, viz. : 



1. State 

2. Treasury 

3. War 

4. Attorney-General 



-1789 



(without a department, however,) 
in the first administration of George Washington. 

5. Navy 1798 

in the administration of John Adams. 

Hitherto, the interests of the navy had been cared for by 
the Department of War, but the threatened foreign war with 
France led to this separation of interests. 



THE CABINET i8i 

6. Postmaster-General 1829 

in the first administration of Andrew Jackson. 

Hitherto, this had been a part of the Treasury Department. 

7. Interior 1849 

in the administration of Zachary Taylor. The name never 
pleased any one. "Home Department" or "Domestic Affairs" 
might have served better. 

This Department also had hitherto been a part of the Treas- 
ury. 

8. Agriculture 1888 

in the first administration of Grover Cleveland. 

This grew out of the Department of the Interior but imme- 
diately upon the elevation to Cabinet rank was many times 
increased in size. 

9. Commerce-and-Labor 1903 

in the first administration of Theodore Roosevelt. 

Hitherto, this had been mainly a part of the Department of 
the Interior. It came as a compromise between the demands 
of organized capital and of union labor. 

For a year, — 1867, — '^^ the Cabinet of Andrew Johnson, 
there was a Secretary of Education. James A. Garfield, Charles 
Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens were powerful in Congress, 
and all three of them were enthusiasts for general education. 
Since that time, there has been a Bureau of Education in the 
Department of the Interior, maintained at a trifling annual 
cost, — under a hundred thousand dollars. 

Costs of the Various Departments. — The lowest annual 
expenditure is that of the Department of State. The Treasury 
has a large net income so far as its own operations are con- 
cerned. The War Department takes about one hundred mil- 
lions a year, or over $1 per citizen. The Interior has a large 
net income. In the Department of Justice, as in that of State, 
there are almost no revenues. The Navy takes one-third more 
than the War (Army) Department. The Postofifice meets its 
own costs of a quarter of a billion dollars annually. Agricul- 
ture spends $15,000,000; the Department of Commerce-and- 
Labor still less. The total is slightly over a billion dollars a 
year, of which seventy per cent, is for war and for past wars, 
— army, navy, pensions, and national debt. Twenty-five per 
cent, comes back in the Postofifice. Five per cent, represents 
simon-pure peaceful present government costs. 



i82 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

Functions of the Several Departments. — In some in- 
stances, the names of the Departments convey but Httle mean- 
ing, and suggest but httle of their functions. 

The Department of State deals with foreign affairs, issues 
all commissions to office, and preserves the original copies of 
all acts of Congress. It might be styled more accurately 
"Official Relations." Though requiring but $4,000,000 an- 
nually for maintenance, it ranks equally with and perhaps 
higher than the Treasury and War Departments, and certainly 
outranks all other Departments. This Department, not Com- 
merce-and-Labor, deals with our national foreign marine 
service and commerce. It represents us before the nations of 
all the world, and receives their ambassadors, ministers and 
other accredited official agents. 

The Treasury Department deals with all financial matters 
and also with the collection of the customs duties at the ports. 
Logically, we need a Department of Finance without this other 
duty. The present Treasury Department also builds all the 
public buildings everywhere, controls the coast-survey, man- 
ages light-houses and the coast life-saving service, and makes 
both paper and metal moneys. 

The War Department has charge of the army and of engi- 
neering matters. It has built the Panama Canal, which will 
cost about $400,000,000 in all. And it oversees and protects 
all our dependencies. 

The Attorney-General represents the United States in all 
actions brought by it and against it in the courts; and helps 
enforce all statutes and regulations. 

The Postmaster-General takes charge of the mails. 

The Navy Department, logically a part of the War De- 
partment, looks after our battleships and cruisers. It manages 
forts, arsenals and navy-yards. (The revenue-cutters, how- 
ever, to be seen in our harbors and along our coasts, belong 
to the Treasury Department. ) 

The Department of the Interior collects the revenues from 
alcoholic liquors and from tobacco. It has a large police force. 
It manages public lands, Indian affairs, the Territories, pen- 
sions, patents, copyrights, census and education. Pensions 
alone take three-twentieths of all our revenues, but these 
include the pensions to officers and soldiers retiring in times 
of peace as well as war-veterans. 



THE CABINET 183 

The Department of Agriculture endeavors to promote the 
welfare of American fields, farms and forests. It has also an 
eye for the public health. 

The Department of Commerce and Labor deals with indus- 
trial wealth, — with manufacturing, mining, trade, shipping, 
and fisheries, and has many miscellaneous duties. 

Of the hundreds of divisions and bureaus, large and small, 
that make up these departments, the assignments to this or 
that department are almost entirely traditional and unscientific. 
Like the English but unlike the French and the Germans, we 
do things first and then think about and perhaps some day in 
part correct them. We proceed empirically, not a priori, and 
seldom a posteriori. Theory would give us a totally different 
organization of the executive; and any systematic induction 
from our experience would shift a third at least of the bureaus. 
But we are neither theorists nor generalizers ; we do, and like 
Nature, pass on. 

There is trouble always within the Interior Department. 
Even the greatest of its Secretaries, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, 
could not set it wholly right. And there is always trouble 
about the operations of the Treasury because we have the 
worst currency customs (not system) of any large civilized 
nation. But there is no remedy anywhere within the horizon. 

The main purposes in creating new departments have been 
two, — first, to provide the President with a group of compe- 
tent and responsible advisers respecting "the state of the 
Union," and second, to relieve overworked Secretaries as from 
time to time the enterprises of the Federal Government have 
grown in number and in importance. 

Principles of Cabinet Selections. — In our history, cer- 
tain principles of Cabinet-making have generally obtained. 

First, the Secretaries shall all be of the same party with the 
President. In only a few instances has this principle been 
ignored. In one of these instances, the Secretary soon changed 
his party, — Edwin M. Stanton. 

Second, the membership of the Cabinet shall be widely dis- 
tributed geographically. It is a rule even that no two Depart- 
ments shall have Secretaries from the same State. It has been 
carried even further, — Secretaries shall not come from the 
same States as the Ambassadors. But the recent tendency 
shows many exceptions to the severer forms of the principle. 



i84 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

Third, all the leading factions of the party shall be con- 
ciliated by representation in the Cabinet. 

Fourth, the Secretaries of the next preceding administra- 
tion are not to be taken. Try new men. 

Fifth, in the consideration of possible Secretaries, long and 
loyal party service is to be highly influential. 

Sixth, some of the Secretaries should be taken out of Con- 
gress not only for the foregoing reason but also in order to 
keep wide open avenues by which through friendships to influ- 
ence that body favorably to the Presidential plans. 

Seventh, represent the several economic classes. A good 
Cabinet is not composed solely of lawyers or of merchants or 
of bankers or of habitual office-holders. Of the latter, United 
States Senators and former State governors have been the 
preferred classes. 

Eighth, usually in the Cabinet, there is at least one defeated 
aspirant for the Presidential nomination, or one Secretary 
whom the President hopes to make his successor, — after his 
second term. 

There are various other and minor rules. Among them are 
the rules that no wholesaling merchant shall be Secretary of 
the Treasury lest there be trouble over import duties in which 
he may be directly or indirectly concerned; that the Post- 
master-General shall be a political manager for the President ; 
that no partner or intimate friend of the President shall be 
made and kept a Secretary; and that pivotal States shall be 
held, if possible, for the party by receiving important port- 
folios. These minor rules have been frequently violated ; and 
yet they lie in the back of the mind of every Cabinet-maker. 
It is also a rule not to nominate a man whom the Senate will 
surely refuse to confirm. The Senate is always "sounded out" 
with the lead line before the President subjects his nominee 
to that current. And yet a Republican Senate will, of course, 
confirm the Democratic nominees of a Democratic President 
No personally offensive nominee was ever presented in such 
a situation. Religion counts nothing, — Roosevelt had both a 
Catholic (Bonaparte) and a Jew (Straus) in his later Cabinet, 
and all approved. 

It is interesting to note that the possession of wealth is not 
a bar to a Secretaryship as it is not to a Senatorship, though 
it is to Presidency, to the Speakership, and to Justiceships. 



THE CABINET 185 

Many Secretaries have been wealthy, some of them have been 
milHonaires, even multimilHonaires. The public is right in 
this discrimination between President and Secretaries, but it 
should extend its rule from President, Speaker and Justices to 
include Vice-President and Senators ; and it should find a way 
to bar the rich even from the Cabinet unless obviously and 
consistently modest, genuinely honest and not merely law- 
honest, and by disposition and habit philanthropic. 

Unfortunately, to do this, the public must frown upon the 
custom of rewarding with Cabinet honors the millionaire poli- 
tician who has given largely to a successful candidate's cam- 
paign fund. And yet more unfortunately, our Presidential 
primaries are proving enormously costly in political promotion 
expenses. More democracy seems to enlarge the political 
opportunities of plutocracy. 

Geographical Distribution of Cabinet Memberships. — 
It is a recognized principle that Presidents should distribute 
their Cabinet memberships widely. The actual record of three 
hundred and fifty-one appointments is as follows, viz. : 



i86 



PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 



Rank of 




Date 


Number 


State in 


Name 


^^. 


of 


Population 




Admission 


Appointments 


I 


New York 


Original State 


43 


6 


Massachusetts 


Original State 


38 


2 


Pennsylvania 


Original State 


32 


4 


Ohio 


l802 


29 


20 


Virginia 


Original State 


24 


14 


Maryland 


Original State 


19 


27 


Kentucky 


1792 


18 


10 


Georgia 


Original State 


13 


31 


Connecticut 


Original State 


12 


9 


Indiana 


1816 


12 


3 


Illinois 


1818 


12 


17 


Tennessee 


1796 


II 


7 


Missouri 


1821 


8 


15 


Iowa 


1846 


8 


II 


New Jersey 


Original State 


7 


26 


South Carolina 


Original State 


8 


34 


Maine 


1820 


6 


8 


Michigan 


1837 


6 


13 


Wisconsin 


1848 


6 


i6 


North CaroHna 


Original State 


5 


46 


Delaware 


Original State 


5 


39 


New Hampshire 


Original State 


4 


24 


Louisiana 


1812 


4 


21 


Mississippi 


1817 


4 


12 


California 


1851 


3 


19 


Minnesota 


1858 


3 . 


28 


West Virginia 


1863 


3 


42 


Vermont 


Original State 


2 


i8 


Alabama 


1819 




25 


Arkansas 


1826 




35 


Oregon 


1859 




29 


Nebraska 


1867 




32 


Colorado 


1876 




30 


Washington 


1889 




38 


Rhode Island 


Original State 





Some Comparisons. — There are some truly astonishing 
things in this record. 

Texas, the fifth State in population and the twenty-eighth to 
be admitted, has never had a Cabinet member in all the sixty- 



THE CABINET 187 

seven years that she has been in the Union. She is our largest 
State in area. 

Kansas, the twenty-second State in population and the 
thirty- fourth to be admitted, has never had a member in all 
her fifty-three years of Statehood. 

Florida, though comparatively but a small State in popula- 
tion, came into the Union in 1845, the twenty-seventh State. 
She has never had a Cabinet Secretary. 

Rhode Island, an Original State, a New England State, lying 
in the angle between Massachusetts with thirty-eight members 
and Connecticut with twelve, has never had a Cabinet Secre- 
taryship. She is the smallest of all the States and thirty-eighth 
in population. 

The States not yet recognized in the Cabinet are: 

Rank of Date 

State in Name of 
Population Admission 

5 Texas 1845 

33 Florida 1845 

22 Kansas 1861 
48 Nevada 1864 
27 North Dakota 1889 

40 Montana 1889 

44 Idaho 1890 
47 Wyoming 1890 
36 South Dakota 1890 

41 Utah 1896 

23 Oklahoma 1907 
43 New Mexico 1912 

45 Arizona 1912 

An Unrecognized and Unutilized Region. — The total 
population of twelve of these States, — Texas, Kansas, Nevada, 
Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, North and South Dakota, 
New Mexico, and Arizona, — is now over twelve millions. 
They have twenty- four Senators. New York with nine mil- 
lions of people has two Senators. These States occupy a vast 
continuous region from the Rio Grande to the headwaters of 
the Missouri, one-quarter of all the land under the flag. Yet 
no high service in the executive branch has ever come to them, 
while the Pacific Coast, yet more remote from Washington, 
has had five Cabinet officers for four million population. 

Whence Come the Secretaries. — There are also inter- 



i88 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

esting things not unsatisfactory but notable. We are now 
getting nearly all of our Secretaries of State from Massachu- 
setts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and contiguous 
States. Since Tyler's time we have had all our foreign aflfairs 
administered from these States and Delaware, Michigan, 
Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, and Maine. 

For the Treasury, we travel more widely, but since the 
time of Grant have taken no New England man, and since the 
time of Taylor no Pennsylvanian. New York, Indiana, Ohio, 
and Illinois are the favorite States. 

The War Department gets men from all regions in the 
triangle from New Orleans to Minneapolis and to Boston. 
Attorney-Generals come from all quarters, — Oregon, Ar- 
kansas, Georgia, and Massachusetts. 

The Postoffice ranges from Massachusetts to Maryland, to 
Tennessee and Wisconsin. 

The Navy ranges like Justice. 

The Interior looks for men in the region from New York 
and from Georgia to Colorado and to Washington. 

Agriculture centers upon Iowa, — its men have come from 
there and from Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, near 
neighbors. It needs next a man from Louisiana or Texas. 

Commerce and Labor ranges literally from New York to 
California. 

It is of historical interest that, until 1861, just one Secretary 
came from west of the Mississippi river; and Key came from 
Louisiana in the Southwest and lived very near the river. 

Geographical Distribution of Supreme Court Mem- 
berships. — The Supreme Court does not come within the 
executive branch and hence, save as it is named by the Presi- 
dent, is not within our survey; but it Is interesting in this 
connection to note that the geographical distribution is ex- 
tremely irregular. _ The record is : 

Tennessee 3 New Hampshire 

New Jersey 2 Connecticut 

North Carolina 2 Maine 
Georgia 2 Mississippi 

Illinois 2 Michigan 

Alabama 2 Iowa 

California 2 Kansas 

Louisiana i 



New York 


8 


Massachusetts 


6 


Ohio 


6 


Pennsylvania 
Virginia 
Maryland 
South Carolina 


5 
5 
5 
3 


Kentucky 


3 



THE CABINET 189 

Of sixty-four appointments, not one has gone to Texas, the 
fifth State in population, to Missouri the seventh, to Indiana 
the ninth, to Wisconsin the thirteenth, to North CaroHna the 
sixteenth, to Minnesota the nineteenth; or to the following 
original States: Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, North 
Carolina; or to the following States early admitted into the 
Union: Vermont, Indiana, Missouri, x\rkansas, Florida, 
Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas. A vast region 
has been totally unrepresented, — Oregon, Washington, Idaho, 
Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska, W^yoming, Utah, Colorado, 
Oklahoma, Texas. 

The Answer to the Enigma is Politics. — As in the case 
of the Cabinet, politics have been played ; and are being played. 
Massachusetts with three and a third million population, 
mostly foreigners, does not merit six Supreme Court appoint- 
ments while Texas with four million, almost all Americans 
native born for many generations, has had none. 

It is not enough to answer that New York and Massachu- 
setts have famous law schools. There are plenty of Westerners 
and of Southerners who have studied law at excellent law 
schools in their youth and who by direct contact with level- 
eyed Americans know more about justice and sound ethics 
than those Americans who bow the knee to privilege. Let 
us have the law, the wise and ancient common law ; but let us 
have it as various men see it. 

The Difficulty of the Several Departments. — The 
quality of the work to be done by the Secretary of State is as 
nearly perfect as man can make his output. Bad as an error 
of judgment is anywhere, an error in diplomacy or in inter- 
national commerce is like setting a spark to quick combustibles. 

The fathers of the Republic expected the twenty-six Sena- 
tors to transact foreign affairs and to negotiate treaties; but 
time and circumstance have given at least the initiative and 
the negotiations into the hands of the executive. 

To-day, the most diflScult Departments to manage are Justice, 
Interior, War, and Treasury, and the less difficult are State, 
Navy, Postoffice, Commerce-and-Labor and Agriculture, with 
the above qualification that the State Department requires per- 
fection of output. In truth, no Department is easy to manage. 
The Postoffice requires management far more energetic, com- 



I90 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

petent and responsible than even our billion-and-a-half dollar 
United States Steel Corporation : it affects more persons many 
times and far more vitally. 

The British Cabinet pays in annual salaries from one thou- 
sand to six thousand pounds. Our Secretaries receive tvi^elve 
thousand dollars each. But their ministers must appear in 
Parliament as w^ell as in their executive offices. The purchas- 
ing poorer of money in London is one-third greater than in 
Washington. 

The Experts are Not Desirable. — There are tnree good 
reasons why Presidents do not seek men v^ho are "expert in 
the business of a Department." Of these, the first is that so 
incongruous are the Departments that the idea itself is an ignis 
fatuus. The Attorney-General is always a lawyer, and the 
Secretary of Agriculture is a farmer. Closer specialization 
than this would defeat its own end. Shall the Secretary of 
State be a foreign diplomat or an international importer or an 
expert documentarian ? His Department has these three lines.^ 

The second reason is that the only available "experts" are 
the assistant secretaries of the Department, who are seldom 
expert in anything but a clerical and ministerial sense. They 
have not been accustomed to exercise independent judgment. 
Lincoln said that the most important quality in a Secretary is 
to know what to decide without reference to the President, 
when the statutes so permit. He frequently mildly admonished 
even his very able Secretaries for not settling matters them- 
selves. 

The third reason for not seeking "experts" is that men of 
large experience, of sound judgment, of personal and political 
influence, and accustomed to give orders can be secured only 
from the rough-and-tumble of life in the States. They do not 
grow in the Departments; and they cannot be prepared in 
universities. A British Cabinet minister is simply a party 
leader of good sense assigned to his department but not ex- 
pected to direct it in any business sense. The same principle 
has always demanded attention in this country. Hamilton 
was not a financier, yet Washington made him Secretary, of 
the Treasury; nor was Chase a financier, yet Lincoln gave the 
same office to him. Both Hamilton and Chase became very 
successful Secretaries. But Albert Gallatin was a financier; 
he improved upon the plans of Hamilton. The Presidents 

^See p. 182, supra. 



THE CABINET 191 

have usually chosen politicians for Postmaster-General and 
have seldom chosen sailors or naval engineers as Secretaries 
of the Navy, or soldiers for the War Department. The few 
so chosen were failures. 

The Qualifications Requisite. — Recently, public opinion 
has begun to assert that "qualified" men should be given 
charge of these Departments. The proposition is obviously 
impossible unless we abandon party government. The only 
man "qualified" for Postmaster-General would be one of the 
assistants; the only qualified Secretary of State an assistant. 
Logically carried out, the Cabinets would be broken only by 
death and resignation, and Secretaries would last longer than 
Presidents. 

The true solution of the problem seems to be for Presidents 
to choose men of large experience and of many talents who 
can fit themselves quickly and comfortably to almost any task 
and who are at the same time of such personal dispositions 
as are agreeable to their chiefs and to their associates. 

It has been a recent tendency to begin with a strong Cabinet 
of men of broad experience and gradually to change to younger 
men as the President himself has acquired familiarity with 
the main duty of decision. Jackson, Polk, and Lincoln made 
no such changes ; but they worked fairly well with others, in- 
cluding Roosevelt and Taft. 

A Certain Effect of Resignations and Replacements. 
Though in all routine matters, which are far in excess of 
others, the trained and long-experienced clerks, bureau and 
division-chiefs, and assistant secretaries do in fact run the De- 
partments, yet few Secretaries serve four years. Indeed the 
mythical "average" clerk serves but five years. Most Secre- 
taries resign from "ill-health," which means over-work in a 
strange climate or for "private business," which may mean 
anything, including distaste for the unfamiliar and recognized 
uncongenial duties. All Secretaries — and all division chiefs — 
are held by the public, including Congress, responsible far 
beyond their legal and customary authority, and likewise far 
beyond information. 

The Secretaries must be ready to report to all the Committees 
of Congress that have bills relating to their respective depart- 
ments. These Committees are numerous and often exacting. 
The system throws the new Secretaries helplessly into the 



192 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

hands of their subordinates, most of whom have tenure supe- 
rior to their own. The War Department is notoriously ruled 
by the Army Staff. A Secretaryship cannot be esteemed as 
desirable for long holding ; it is often taken for a year or two 
for the honor and for the record and for the sake of a period 
in Washington for social and political reasons. It gives pres- 
tige at home. Hence, many Cabinets have been kaleidoscopic. 

A Congressman was severely reprimanding a division-chief 
for failure to get legislation to rectify an unfortunate situa- 
tion. Each supposed that the other had been long in office. 
They laughed cheerfully when it developed that one had been 
in Congress just four weeks and the other in the Executive 
Department only four months! It was a characteristic inci- 
dent. Equally characteristic are the cases where one has had 
long experience, the other none ; but these are not so common. 
It is a regulation since the early days of Roosevelt that no 
department man shall volunteer any infarmation to a Con- 
gressman ; or if he can not avoid it, give such only as he feels 
certain will be duly accepted by and agreeable to his official 
superiors. He is a clerk who has renounced personal opinions. 

Qualities of Various Cabinets. — As Secretary of State, 
William H. Seward served both Lincoln and Johnson, and by 
forcing through Congress, against the opinions of most of the 
prominent members, the purchase of Alaska, which they called 
"Seward's Folly," performed an achievement notable not only 
as constructive statesmanship in the work of peaceful terri- 
torial expansion but also as violation of the political tradition 
that Secretaries are not to force legislation. 

Nearly every famous American statesman or politician has 
served at least a year or two in the Cabinet of some President. 
Eight of the Presidents have been Secretaries of some one of 
their predecessors. Yet six af these Presidents were among 
the poorest ; were they naturally subordinate or did their train- 
ing make them so ? Does it require a certain subservience and 
indirectness to serve another's will in high office as in menial 
life ? Does a Secretaryship spoil a man for first class achieve- 
ment? 

It seems to be true that legislative service better fits one for 
the Presidency than does subordinate executive service: per- 
haps the State governorship is the best training. As for the 
judicial experience, only one judge of high rank has become 



THE CABINET 193 

President; and he only after intermediate executive service. 
Generalizations are scarcely trustworthy; but a few hypo- 
theses force themselves upon the attention/ 

Long Service in Office. — The fame of some men is due 
in part to long Cabinet service. It is reasonable to suppose 
that usually the long service was due to its excellent quality. 
Sometimes, the service has been in one Department, sometimes 
in several. 

Gallatin served thirteen years. James Wilson, now of the 
Department of Agriculture, has already served fourteen years. 
William Wirt served nearly twelve years. 

Those serving from eight to eleven years have been Madison, 
J. Q. Adams, Dearborn, Calhoun, Meigs, Cass, Marcy, 
Granger, Stanton, Seward, Welles, and E. A. Hitchcock. 

Several others served five, six or seven years, — Pickering, 
Randolph, Monroe, Toucey, Barry, Evarts, Windom. 

Nearly every Cabinet has had at least one man who was the 
equal of his chief, and several Cabinets have had men abler 
than their leaders. It is safe to put the proposition yet 
more broadly. Nearly every Cabinet had at least one man 
who in sheer competence outranked his chief, and in nearly 
every such Cabinet, the man was perfectly loyal to his Presi- 
dent. 

That is the cause of the success of the executive branch of 
the American Government. It is the essence of democracy to 
ignore hierarchy and to be glad to serve. Moreover, it is 
perfectly true that the executive branch has done its work 
more democratically and more progressively than either the 
judicial or the legislative. It is a question that we must leave 
to later ages when archives are unlocked and private desks are 
opened which of the three branches has been the most honest 
or the least dishonest. We hear the least of the achievements 
of the judiciary and the most of those of the legislators: in 
modern civilization, speech is the key to fame. 

Presidents and Their Secretaries. — A comparison of 
the Presidents with their Secretaries results in interesting 
measurements of the Presidents with one another. 

Of Chase, Lincoln said: "Chase is one-and-a-half times 
bigger than any other man I know." He resigned in part be- 
cause he could not manage his chief. He complained that he 
was kept busy "trying to fill Uncle Abe's bar'l." 

*Sce pp. 56-60, supra. 



194 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

In a similar mood, Jefferson, who easily managed Madison, 
his Secretary of State, resigned from the Cabinet of Wash- 
ington. 

Lincoln had managed Stanton, but Johnson failed to do so. 
Lincoln convinced Stanton of his superiority. We can perhaps 
forgive Stanton for his many grievous faults. When he saw 
Lincoln die, he who had borne the brunt of the night's anxiety 
and labor, dictating despatches and orders, while most of the 
others were too stricken for speech or action, turned to the 
watchers and spoke the final sentence, — "Now he belongs to 
the ages." 

Taylor, who tried to get a great Cabinet together, had to 
notify Daniel Webster in writing that he, not Webster, was 
President and as such accountable to the people. Taylor and 
Webster were incommensurate because diverse in abilities; 
but the superiority of Webster to Fillmore is obvious. 

John Marshall was an abler man than John Adams; J. Q. 
Adams and Calhoun were abler men than Monroe; and per- 
haps William Wirt also was abler than his chief. Clay was 
abler than J. Q. Adams. In sheer leadership and mastery, 
Jackson surpassed all his Secretaries ; it was a moral primacy ; 
but in what is ordinarily styled "statesmanlike ability," he was 
overmatched by Van Buren, Cass, Butler, and Taney and in 
political finesse by Kendall. It made a powerful combination 
and a peculiar situation. W. H. Harrison was unequal to 
Webster. Tyler had several superiors in his own shifting 
Cabinet, — Webster, Calhoun, and Mason. Polk was sur- 
rounded by superiors, — Buchanan, Walker, Marcy, Mason, 
Johnson, and Bancroft, — but he overmastered them, as did 
Jackson, by force and by insight. Pierce was distinctly inferior 
to Marcy and Davis. Nearly every one of his Secretaries was 
an abler man than Buchanan, though not abler than Buchanan 
had been. Cass, though seven years older than Buchanan, was 
his superior; and Black and Cobb were far stronger and 
keener. Even Floyd surpassed him. Surrounding himself 
with the ablest public men, Lincoln clearly overmastered them, 
— not by intellect, — but by those reliances of even weak men, 
patience, persistence, tact and art. 

Imagine Lincoln in the Cabinet of Fillmore, of Buchanan, 
of Johnson or of Grant ! Or in his own Cabinet, with Seward, 
Stanton, Chase, or Fessenden as President! It is by such re- 



THE CABINET 195 

versed relations that we distinguish his quaHties. Like every 
other of the world's really great men, he had peculiar ways, 
was queer, different, unique, sui generis and as such isolated. 
Even as a Secretary, he would have become famous for un- 
ravelling mysteries, for pursuing policies, for managing men, 
and for getting toward his goal, with an almost absurd passion 
for details that he might do justice with a touch of mercy. 

Men said then and men still say that Johnson was inferior 
to and somewhat controlled by Seward. In his Cabmet, 
Seward, Stanton, Evarts, Harlan, and perhaps Dennison and 
Welles were abler than he. As for Grant, in Presidential 
character, he was so naive and personal that comment is un- 
necessary; almost any one of his Secretaries surpassed him in 
statesmanship. Hayes was overmatched by Evarts, Morrill, 
Sherman, Devens, Chandler, and Schurz; but he was one of 
those persons of judgment who know good advice and take it, 
gratefully and promptly. Garfield was surpassed by Blaine. 
Arthur had nearly half a dozen superiors in his Cabinet, — 
Gresham, R. T. Lincoln, MacVeagh, Chandler, McCuUoch. 
Yet there was not a star among them, certainly not a star 
above fifth magnitude. 

The world, no doubt, ranks John Wanamaker and William 
C. Whitney, perhaps even Elkins and Vilas and Tracy, above 
Benjamin Harrison in ability. 

Regarding the Men of To-Day. — For the rest, it is too 
early to judge. We are too near; and some of the rivals and 
associates are still alive. The Secretaries may yet become 
Presidents, as Taft succeeded Roosevelt. The Cabinets of 
Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft are not to be lightly 
judged. They numbered Olney, Carlisle, Harmon, J. S. 
Morton, John Sherman, Hay, Root, Long, Ethan Allen Hitch- 
cock, James Wilson, as well as others too "new" for naming 
here. Time may yet give their deeds strange emphasis as it 
will seem to us their contemporaries. Our own views of J. Q. 
Adams and Van Buren and Lincoln are by no means those of 
most men of their times ; our views of Charles Lee, Crawford, 
Calhoun, Wirt, Clay, Webster, Cass, Taney, McLane, Butler 
(of New York), Kendall, Paulding, Bell, Crittenden, would 
seem strange alike to their friends and to their opponents. The 
perspective changes rapidly. Only a few great or otherwise 
notable figures remain; and even these are seen upon remoter 



196 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

backgrounds. They were judged then by their political pro- 
ficiency, their executive efficiency, their favor with the great, 
their popularity with the many, their personal powers and 
graces and interests. Not so now. We ask what they did for 
the extension of democracy, for the development of govern- 
mental theory and practice, for the final ending of slavery, for 
or against a protective tariff, for or against internal improve- 
ments at national cost, for or against scientific and industrial 
and other social progress, for the spread of population and the 
utilization of national resources, for the enhancement of the 
national prestige, for the emancipation of labor, for the organi- 
zation of business, for justice and for freedom: in short, for 
posterity, for ourselves. We shear the reputation of Hamilton 
here and add to it there ; we knock out the padding of Webster 
here, and convert a dead man's words into the solid white 
marble of immortal fame there. Perhaps, the spots on the sun 
are part and parcel of its power to give heat. Indubitably, if 
Calhoun had not defended slavery, which is wrong now, he 
could not have been heard in the Senate and thence through- 
out the land, proclaiming the necessity of local sovereignty, 
which is eternally right. 

So it may be that something scarcely seen now in the record 
of some Cabinet Secretary may lift him yet into the universal 
light of history. 

Makers of Great Cabinets. — Their Cabinets have helped 
make Presidents successful or unsuccessful. Ability to judge 
men is perhaps the most necessary of all qualifications in a 
President. Yet the greater of the Presidents have not always 
chosen good Cabinets. Changes in Cabinets during adminis- 
trations have usually resulted in getting inferior men. The 
reasons are perhaps two, — the fame of entering the Cabinet 
with a President is far greater than that of succeeding some 
other man ; and as a President grows familiar with his duties, 
he places more emphasis upon the services of a Secretary in his 
Department than upon his prominence before the country. 
Therefore, clerks replace statesmen. And, nevertheless, the 
willingness to associate with great men and the ability to dis- 
cern them are major qualities in the equipment of a President. 

It may be added that as the American people continue in 
their practice of choosing Presidents, they are likely to improve 
in skill and in courage in so doing. They will learn that we 



THE CABINET 197 

need as Presidents men who look upon all the people and no 
individuals or groups of individuals as master; and who will 
have no other aims or duties than the general welfare. 

Cabinet Enlargement, — In 1800, our executive branch at 
Philadelphia had one hundred and forty officers and clerks to 
be transferred to the new Capital. In 1910, it had at Wash- 
ington thirty-seven thousand officers and clerks. In the eleven 
decades, the total executive service had grown from a thousand 
to five hundred thousand, including army and navy. And yet 
the Cabinet had grown but from four to nine members. 

Or to put the matter in relation with population: In 1800 
we had 5,000,000 under the flag, and four Cabinet officers; 
in 19 ID, over 100,000,000 and but nine Cabinet officers. 

The American Cabinet is not likely to be standardized per- 
manently in size and in functions as it stands now. 

The democratic movement tends always to large "colleges" 
of deliberation, — courts, legislatures, councils. It tends also 
to magnifying the power of the head officer. The House of 
Representatives grows ; and with here and there only an occa- 
sional backset, the power of the Speaker grows. The Supreme 
Court grows ; and the power of the Chief Justice grows. The 
Cabinet grows ; and the power of the President over it. In the 
multitude of councillors, there is wisdom; but decision and 
action proceed best from one man. 

Several new departments are now in course of differentia- 
tion from the present departments and of integration into sepa- 
rate existence. These are health, education, transportation, 
dependencies, manufacture and labor. There is talk also of a 
special department of government industries. Opportunism 
always has controlled, and yet it is by no means certain that it 
always will control. 

The forces that prevent the establishment ot new depart- 
ments now are: 

First, fear of increasing government expenditures. 

Second, fear of disturbing the status quo in respect to tariff, 
to currency, to internal revenues and to other matters in which 
special interests have special stakes. 

Third, the unwillingness of Presidents to burden themselves 
with too many advisers, and 

Fourth, tradition, especially the tradition that the central 



198 



PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 



government must not be too wise and too strong lest individual 
liberty and initiative decline. 

But all these forces together will not stay the present move- 
ments. Several departments are cumbrous and incongruous, 
notably Interior and War. Nine men are too few to operate 
safely and efficiently a government spending annually over one 
billion dollars. The present departments are too unequal. 
Democracy itself, logic, science and common sense are all at 
work to force change and progress. 

At any rate, the larger the Cabinet the less each Secretary 
would play the politician, and the more would he be expected to 
work at his department business. 

Proposed Cabinet. — The additions and changes proposed, 
if all should be carried out, would make a Cabinet of eighteen 
or twenty members, none too many as judged by contemporary 
nations. 

1. State 

2. Treasury 

3. Army 

4. Justice 

5. Navy 

6. Postoffice 

7. Interior 

8. Agriculture 

9. Commerce 

The functions of these are perhaps sufficiently indicated by 
their titles or known from history save in respect to 18 and 19. 
The proposed Engineering Department would construct all 
new buildings, roads, etc. The Department of Records and 
Statistics would record and preserve all statutes, take the 
census, and issue patents and copyrights. 

The more familiar one becomes with actual government and 
with the movements to better it, the more desirable and the 
more probable Cabinet expansion appears. 



10. 


Labor 


17- 


Government In- 


II. 


Transportation 




dustries 


12. 


Public Health 


18. 


Engineering and 


13- 


Education 




Construction. 


14. 


Manufacturers 


19. 


Records and Sta- 


15- 


Mining 




tistics 


16. 


Colonies and 


20. 


Ocean and Wa- 




Dependencies 




terways. 



THE PRESIDENT AS MAYOR 199 

CHAPTER IV 

The President as Mayor 

The Capital City — District of Columbia — its history — negro population 
and local government — vast jurisdiction of nominally local courts — 
costs and expenses — relation of local government to Cabinet depart- 
ments. 

The Capital City. — In an important sense, the President 
of the United States is Mayor of the Capital City. In this 
sense, he performs two kinds of offices, — first, he signs or 
vetoes all legislation for the Capital, and second, he appoints 
all the heads of government, including the three Commis- 
sioners of the District of Columbia, the three Justices of the 
Court of Appeals, the six Justices of the Supreme Court (infe- 
rior to the Court of Appeals), and the Judges of the Criminal 
Court. At present, the powers of the President are greater 
than at most earlier periods because of the existing form of 
government. 

A District of Columbia Anomalous. — The conception 
of a District of Columbia to be independent of the jurisdic- 
tion of any State was due to a belief that the new government 
of the United States would, in a sense, be a referee between 
the several sovereign States, for which purpose the Capital 
must needs be upon neutral ground. That the central govern- 
ment was to be paramount some feared and some confusedly 
believed. The outcome has been that there is in fact little more 
need that the Capital of the Nation should be neutral ground 
as between the States than that the Capital of New York 
should be a District of Knickerbocker within the State but 
neutral as between the counties. The present justification of 
the District proceeds upon a new doctrine, — that its reason for 
existence is tO' have a beautiful model city for the people of 
all the States and of all the nations to admire. For the 
creation of such a model city, all the people of the nation are 
to be taxed whether they ever see Washington or not. Of 
course, this is not Federalism, it certainly is not Jeffersonian 
Republican Democracy; but it is Nationalism, and as such must 
stand or fall. 

History of the City. — The city of Washington, — for- 



200 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

merly but a part of the District of Columbia, — was planned 
by Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant under the direction of 
President George Washington and of his Secretary of State, 
Thomas Jefferson. Andrew Ellicott, who later became pro- 
fessor of civil engineering in the United States Military 
Academy at West Point, did the actual surveying. One hun- 
dred and ten years later, in 1901, President Roosevelt, by 
Senate authorization (not that of Congress), appointed a com- 
mission consisting of two architects, one sculptor-artist, and a 
landscape engineer, to develop the L'Enfant plan for a much 
larger section of the region than the original city of Wash- 
ington. 

The city was chartered in 1802, with a mayor appointed by 
the President and a council of two chambers, elected by the 
people. Then under the Democrat, Thomas Jefferson, the con- 
troversy began with a compromise. According to the Con- 
stitution, Article I, section 8, "The Congress shall have power 
. to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatso- 
ever over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as 
may, by cession of particular States, and the acceptance of 
Congress, become the seat of government of the United 
States." This section was adopted on Wednesday, September 
5, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention without debate. No 
one knows who first proposed it in the Committee of Eleven 
on Detail. There is no scintilla of evidence as to what "ex- 
clusive legislation" meant to the "Fathers." Two parties at 
once developed, the one asserting that it meant Exclusive of 
the States, the other exclusive of the States and also of its 
own inhabitants. In 181 2, the residents of the District suc- 
ceeded in doing away with the appointment of the Mayor by 
the President and persuaded Congress to pass and Madison to 
sign a bill making the Mayor an appointee of the local Council. 
In 1820, Monroe signed a bill making the Mayor the choice of 
the inhabitants by vote. This system of free self-government 
prevailed until 1871, 

The original District consisted of 70 square miles of land 
and water ceded by Maryland and of 30 square miles ceded by 
Virginia. (Originally, Maryland owned all the Potomac river, 
not merely to mid-stream but to the edge of the water upon the 
Virginia side. She granted 10 square miles of this water to 
the United States.) But in 1846, when Polk was President, 



THE PRESIDENT AS MAYOR 201 

the United States retroceded the Virginia section, thinking 
that the north side of the Potomac plus the river itself afforded 
ample room for development. 

The Negro Population. — In 1862 slavery was abolished 
in the District, and the United States Government paid $900,000 
as damages to the owners of the 3000 slaves thereby emanci- 
pated, an average of $300 each, a low price, but a year later 
throughout America slaves were no longer property.^ The 
Emancipation Proclamation and the surrender at Appomattox, 
together with the deaths of thousands of slaveholders, sent 
many freedmen homeless into the w^orld. The tremendous 
operations of the Interstate War had multiplied the govern- 
mental employees. And the colored people flocked into Wash- 
ington to work for the whites there for wages. Washington 
also was the home office of the Freedmen's Bureau. 

The story is told in the Census figures : 

White. Colored. Total. 

1800 5,672 2,472 8,144 

1840 23,926 9,819 33745 

1850 37.941 13.746 51.687 

i860 60,763 14.316 75.079 

1870 88,278 43,404 131,682 

Suffrage Abolished. — Even the Mexican War caused a 
great gain in population; but the 29,000 colored population 
gain in the Interstate War decade swamped the District. In 
1 87 1 a great change in government was made. A Board of 
Public Works was created to introduce better street-making, 
sewers, water-supply, etc. By 1874, it became apparent that 
the freedmen held control. To offset these new voters, hordes 
of whites were run in from Maryland and voted by the bosses. 
Then by the urgency of President Grant, reconstruction was 
undertaken by force. The ballot was abolished. The white men 
of the District of Columbia were reduced with the freedmen to 
bring the proteges of government like the Indians on reserva- 
tions. In 1878, President Hayes made the new system, with 
some even more rigid features "permanent." And now the 
District of Columbia is politically nothing less than Congress 

^Many slaveholders of the District made no attempt to recover payment 
for their slaves^ 



202 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

and the President operating for the government of the Capital. 
Congress attends fortnightly to the District business, acting 
as a City Council. Four Committees attend to the affairs of 
the District, — a Senate District Committee, a House District 
Committee, and two corresponding District sub-committees of 
the Committees on Appropriation. The three District of Co- 
lumbia Commissioners have scarcely any legislative powers. 
Congress prescribes minute details, fearing lest advantage be 
taken of it during its usual summer recesses. 

Vast Jurisdiction of Nominally Local Courts. — It is 
anomalous that the term "District of Columbia" in respect to 
the Courts of the District should not be confined to the 60 
square miles of its land surface, but in fact the District Su- 
preme Court has been given by Congress special jurisdiction 
over the territories and other lands and the seacoasts, — in gen- 
eral, territorial and admiralty powers of a highly technical 
nature. 

Under President Roosevelt, the city of Washington was 
made coterminous with the District of Columbia, and its sole 
present usefulness as a term is as a postal station, — Washing- 
ton designating the most thickly settled part of the District. 

Costs and Expenditures. — The total costs of all public 
buildings, parks, bridges and other public improvements are 
unknown. These have been charged to several different De- 
partments, in general and special appropriation bills, with the 
intent to conceal the facts. A fair estimate is $125,000,000. 
The annual cost of the District Government is about 
$15,000,000, all items included that are properly chargeable 
to it ; but the United States Government in addition pays out 
annually in the District to its 37,000 employees there and in 
the maintenance and extension of its many buildings $60,- 
000,000 more. The policy of Republicanism has been to build 
up a tremendous body of people and of machinery for use in 
defence of. its system. 

Local assessments and taxes are lower than anywhere else 
in the United States, for the Government pays one-half of all 
District expenses. This is a hedp to the Congressmen and 
Senators and governmental officials who have funds for real 
estate investment and speculation. Few houses are owned by 
their occupants ; the low taxes invite absentee landlordism 
also. The clerks are rent-payers. 



THE PRESIDENT AS MAYOR 203 

/*" 

The present population is 335,000 persons, of whom one- 
third are colored, making Washington the largest negro com- 
munity on earth. The whites and blacks are all educated in 
one system of public schools, but of the one hundred and sixty 
public school buildings, ninety-seven are exclusively for whites. 
The schools are controlled by a board of education, of whom 
one-third are negroes; this board is appointed by the judges 
of the District Supreme Court, none of whom, however, is a 
permanent resident of the District. The population of the 
District is transient; one-fifth of its number on the average 
change every year. 

Relation of Local Government to Cabinet Depart- 
ments. — Over this city, the seventeenth in population in the 
United States, the President rules by no choice of their own 
and with far more power than any elective mayor wields. 
But in point of fact, he is so busy with vastly greater concerns 
that Washington receives but little of his personal attention. 
Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Taft gave considerable thought and 
attention to the District for its advantage ; Grant, Hayes, and 
McKinley encouraged the forces of evil. But Jefferson and 
Madison were the only Presidents who dealt with its anoma- 
lous character honorably and wisely. 

Washington was a heavy speculative investor in its city lots. 
To Grant must be debited many of the sources of such gov- 
ernmental inefficiency, extravagance and corruption as still 
stain "the American City Beautiful" whose slums and 268 
alleys are not surpassed for degradation within our borders.^ 

Usually, the President assigns the duties of oversight of 
the District to two Secretaries, — of War for the engineering 
problems, and of the Treasury for the financial. 

The glamour of the moonlight upon the glorious Capitol 
blinds many eyes to the facts and results of the un-American 
political system of helotage in Washington. 

Perhaps in some wise and honest administration. Congress 
and the President and the Courts may restore Americanism in 
the American Capital. It would save money. It would cleanse 
us of hypocrisy. And it would, thereby, restore our honor at 
home and beyond seas. 

^See pp. 507, 508. 



204 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

CHAPTER V 
The White House, Official Home of the Presidents 

Why required and why so called — size and location — daily life of a Presi- 
dent — the summer capital — costs — salary of the President. 

Why Required and Why So Called. — The business of 
the President is so exacting that (as in the case of the States 
and their Governors) the nation provides for him a building 
that is at once his residence and his office, — to save his time. 
This official residence is the scene of the Cabinet meetings, of 
the dinners and receptions of state, of the labors of all the 
President's clerks, and of his home-life. It has been given 
individuality by being termed "The White House," from the 
name of the family home of Mrs. Washington upon the Pa- 
munky river, Virginia. When the British burned the Presi- 
dent's freestone mansion, in 1814, they left the walls standing, 
and to cover the smoke-stains, it was painted white, making 
the name peculiarly appropriate. 

Size and Location. — The mansion is 1 70 feet long by 86 
feet deep, and has two stories, each very high; as also is the 
basement opening from the lower level in the rear. Upon the 
front is the Ionic portico that gives it the true colonial style. 
The architect was James Hoban, who modeled his plan upon 
the county seat of the Duke of Leinster, near Dublin, Ireland. 
He began its construction in 1792, and President George Wash- 
ington closely supervised the work, though it was not com- 
pleted until 1799, under John Adams. It was rebuilt under 
James Madison, during which time he lived in a private house 
called by its owners "The Octagon" because of its shape. 

In 1902-03, under Roosevelt, the White House was extended 
by a wing to include a new Cabinet room and a set of executive 
offices, so arranged in conformity with a fortunately varying 
ground level of the site as not to modify the original design 
of the main structure. 

The White House stands at an elevation of forty feet above 
the Potomac river, which is over half a mile away; but be- 



' THE WHITE HOUSE 205 

tween it and the river is an open view unobstructed by any 
building save the mighty monolith of the Washington Monu- 
ment. There is but one serious objection to the local site, — it 
lies below the evening-morning Potomac valley fog-line. The 
deaths of Harrison, of Taylor and of Polk have been ascribed 
by many to the local malaria. 

The Two Floors. — The first floor of the White House is 
devoted entirely to the public uses of the building. Even the 
library is upon the second floor. Some of its rooms, notably 
the great audience-hall, the East Room, have been the scene of 
many famous gatherings. The second floor constitutes the 
home of the President and of his family. Both the basement 
and the third or attic floor serve important uses. 

Some Incidents Recalled. — What an interesting history 
the now old building has had ! That East Room was used by 
Mrs. Abigail Adams in the fall of 1800 when the first Presi- 
dent moved into the mansion for clothes' drying, for it was 
unfinished. The building stood in a thicket of alder bush, with 
a swamp between it and the Potomac. In the East Room the 
sons of Garfield rode bicycle races with the perilous high front 
wheel now to be seen only in pictures. There the Prince of Wales 
and the Crown Prince of Germany have been feted. Out upon 
that lawn Tad Lincoln drove daily his pair of goats. In that 
second story, the children of Grover Cleveland first saw the 
light of day. There the first wives of Tyler and of Benjamin 
Harrison died. And there died William Henry Harrison and 
Zachary Taylor. To it Garfield was carried after being shot, 
to die later at Elberon. 

There Madison and Polk and Lincoln and McKinley planned 
their military and naval campaigns. And it is pleasant to 
recall that not one of the attempted or completed murders of 
a President has ever taken place in it. Jackson was assaulted 
at the Capitol, Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. Even Guiteau, who 
called upon Garfield the morning of that dreadful July day, 
waited to catch him two hours later upon less historic ground. 
McKinley M'-as slain at Buffalo. Every manner of human 
being has visited that building, including an Emperor. 

Historical Events. — The White House saw first Mrs. 
John Adams and what her husband styled the family of "five 
amiable children," though surely J. Q. was never amiable. She 



2o6 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

gave the first public reception there January i, 1801. Then 
forests surrounded it; and an alder-swamp lay between the 
Executive Mansion and the Capitol. 

It saw Thomas Jefferson, his daughters and sons-in-law, 
and his grandchildren. His friends, his acquaintances, the 
friends and acquaintances of his friends and acquaintances, 
and prominent men of every degree of prominence dined there 
as at a plantation home in hospitable Virginia. He kept open 
house for nearly everyone for 2922 days. 

The White House saw fascinating Dolley Madison ; and felt 
British fire and vandal-hands. Thereafter it wore a coat of 
white paint. 

It saw James Monroe and his two daughters and sons-in- 
law. 

Then it saw John Quincy Adams again, being twenty-five 
years older; and already nearly sixty. Until his death in 1848, 
it often looked upon him. It saw another fine Adams family. 
The Adamses of Massachusetts never were Boston Brahmins, 
never quite attained the highest caste, never became rich 
enough, or dull enough, mixed too much in politics and with 
the vulgar, and had too large families. They almost attained : 
they became Presidents, Ministers to England, even railroad 
presidents and prodigious scholars. But the sacred ark of the 
covenant of being strictly first class has not yet felt their — lee 
us say it plainly — common hands, common and laborious and 
always ambitious and distinctly serviceable.^ 

In that big castle, — so Mrs. Abigail styled it, — when he felt 
tired and irritable with consumption already upon him, "Old 
Hero" smoked his clay pipe and dreamed that his wife was 
alive again to sit peacefully and to smoke with him. Thence 
Thor-like, he issued his fulminations against Nullification and 
the National Bank, and blasted each with his lightnings. 

There Van Buren dined with gold spoons ; and gave us the 
best financial management this nation ever saw. There he 
smiled and smiled and played the political game of the first 
master of politics of his day, to rank almost with Jefferson and 
Lincoln and McKinley, and to miss renomination only because 
of a foolish two-thirds rule. 

There Harrison with his fine family of children and grand- 
children battled with the hordes of office-seekers brought in 

^See pp. 251, 309. 



THE WHITE HOUSE 207 

by the new railroads and with the dampness of the Potomac 
valley to die so soon. 

There Tyler sat at one wife's bier and stood with her suc- 
cessor in marriage. 

There Polk schemed and won empires south and north. 
There he paid out all his energy, — to die two months after 
leaving the building. There his beautiful wife held her stately 
receptions. If the White House has feelings, how it must have 
felt for the devoted, earnest, childless pair! 

Taylor came next, — big, happy, rich, with good wife, chil- 
dren and grandchildren. They must have cheered the old 
home. The days of Jefferson were come again, — of the 
Adamses, of Harrison. There was plenty of money and 
plenty of fun. Typhoid ended this joy. 

Fillmore graced the fine old building. And Pierce likewise. 

Buchanan came with his niece. Life now was very courtly 
and elegant and scrupulously honest and economical. There 
were whispered conferences. There was almost consternation. 
The White House was on quicksand. The Republic was slip- 
ping down, down. 

There entered a strange, tall figure, taller than he who had 
planned the building, or Jefferson who made it and all America 
democratic and welcomed men with their cronies to his dinners, 
or Fillmore who signed the Compromise bills. Abraham Lincoln, 
— Father Abraham, Honest Abe, — the railsplitter, — who had 
said, "A house divided cannot stand," — entered with his eager 
little wife and the three boys. He prayed there at midnight 
and read his Bible and buried little Willie from its doors. 
And somehow with blood for mortar the quicksand was meta- 
morphosed into adamant. The house was not divided. But 
in it lay dead the master of us all. 

Another big family arrived, the Johnsons of Tennessee. 
Another little wonlan was there, an old, old lady, mother and 
grandmother, frail with "old fashioned consumption." One 
glad day, the messenger rushed up to her sitting-room and 
cried, "He's acquitted. They've acquitted the President." It 
was a very important day to the little lady who as a bride of 
sixteen had taught a future President how to write his letters. 
But it was also a very important day to millions and millions 
of people. A President impeached for politics and removed 



2o8 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

would have placed the Presidency and this nation beneath con- 
tempt and beyond saving as a republic. 

The Grants were another big family within the friendly 
walls. The White House became the rendezvous for the war- 
made millionaires. Once more as in the days of "Old Hick- 
ory," tobacco-smoke pervaded the air; but it was from good 
cigars, not clay-pipes. Things got dim and confused. There 
was more talk of impeachment. Yet the President himself 
talked but little. 

Hayes came and banished wine and cigars. He brought in 
again the Bible and prayers. He brought in also the cares of 
great and growing wealth and yet philanthropy. And he had 
a fine family with him. 

Garfield and his boys romped there. Oh! how bright the 
outlook was for that cheerful, vigorous man ! One pistol-shot, 
and the night slowly settled down. 

In the White House, Arthur forgot the dull days when he 
had worked his way through college, the dark days when his 
wife died, and smiled over the disgraceful removal from the 
collectorship of the port of New York. He now gave to him- 
self a perfectly good time, with horses, and parties, and friends, 
and good meals with wine. Incidentally, he did his work, and 
ruined his health. 

Cleveland came a bachelor. Soon a very lovely young bride 
arrived. The man underwent transformation. Likewise, the 
White House, for it remembered another beautiful bride, the 
second wife of Tyler. A baby arrived also, the only Presi- 
dent's child ever born in the wonderful building. 

Benjamin Harrison was there, methodical, competent. It 
was a gloomy time, for his wife died within those walls. 

An astonishing thing happened ! Cleveland came back. Har- 
rison had feared this, yet it had never happened before. No 
one-termer had ever been resurrected. Perhaps Mrs. Cleve- 
land was the cause. Those who know the true inwardness of 
New York finance say so. 

McKinley came. The White House must be quiet as in the 
days of Jackson, the widower; of Tyler, the bereaved; of 
Pierce bereft of every child and worried over an invalid wife ; of 
Buchanan, the bachelor; of Lincoln, the war-grieved; of John- 
son, with the dear invalid old wife; and of Harrison, likewise 



THE WHITE HOUSE 209 

troubled. For Mrs. McKinley was frail and sad. Black cigars 
again filled the house with smoke as in the days of Grant. But 
McKinley was a mighty toiler, like the Adamses and Lincoln 
and Cleveland. His health was wearing away, when, crash! 
out of the sky, death smote. No longer can the White House 
say "Farewell," when a President steps out for an airing but 
only "Adieu"— "May you go to God!" and "Good-bye"— 
"May God be with you!" 

A transformation followed. It was as though both Adamses, 
Jackson, Grant and several more were all back again. Roose- 
velt with wife and six children has the key and pass- word. 
The White House must have wings for the increasing busi- 
ness. Social life is restored, — finer and larger than ever 
before. 

With a fifty per cent, increase of salary, and with a travel- 
ling allowance, William H. Taft arrived, a vast person, cheer- 
ful, industrious, frequently at home. 

Daily Life. — ^The daily routine of a President usually 
begins with a late rising, — at eight o'clock perhaps. After 
breakfast and exercise indoors or out, and reading of news- 
papers, edited for him by clerks, about ten o'clock he steps over 
to the Executive offices, recently built, and reads the mail and 
signs or at least approves important letters from the day before. 
The day's new mail may include 300 or 1300 or even 3300 
first class letters, for in times of excitement, there is no spar- 
ing of the President by his constituency of 95,000,000 Ameri- 
cans. Of these communications, he may see twenty or thirty 
and hear something of a hundred or so, all in an hour, for 
at eleven o'clock comes the time of official callers by appoint- 
ment, — including judges, senators, representatives, governors, 
politicians, journalists, business men, whomever he has ar- 
ranged to see that day. Their number may be fifty, and it 
may be that a single delegation comes two hundred strong. At 
twelve o'clock, the President sees the officers of the executive 
branch of government, — secretaries, consuls, army and navy 
officers, bureau chiefs. Twice a week, at this hour, he holds 
his Cabinet meeting, which may last several hours. On other 
days, at one or one-thirty o'clock, he has lunch, usually in his 
private office. About two or two-thirty he takes up his real 
work, — bills from Congress awaiting his consideration, and 



2IO PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

messages, annual or special, to Congress, — orders to the De- 
partments, plans for the future. At four, he goes out for 
recreation or exercise, usually returning at six o'clock. The 
usual dining-hour is seven-thirty o'clock. After dinner, the 
President sees by appointment such persons as he may desire 
to see, — these evening appointments indicate business of great 
importance. At nine or ten o'clock, he may make or receive 
calls or go for an hour or so to the theatre or to some public 
function. At eleven o'clock, he has an hour or two by himself 
for such business or study as he may have reserved for special 
attention. When Congress is in session, the President seldom 
retires before twelve or one o'clock. 

The Summer Capital. — Theodore Roosevelt set up "a 
summer Capital" at Oyster Bay, Long Island, his country 
home, where he could at once escape the heat of Washington, 
get better outdoor recreation than in the Potomac valley, 
and do more work. William H. Taft has followed the custom, 
but as in 1909 and 191 1 he called special spring and summer 
sessions of Congress, his vacations at Beverly, Massachusetts, 
have been little more than week-ends, entailing two nights each 
week spent on railroad trains. Of course, the term "summer 
capital" is purely humorous. The Constitution recognizes only 
the District of Columbia. The "summer capital" plan does not 
greatly change the President's hours, for he must still spend 
most of his time every day upon the public business; and he 
must always be ready for great emergencies. 

President McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft have all been great 
travellers, making tours throughout the country for various 
purposes. 

Costs of the White House. — The home of the President 
is maintained in respect to its public functions at national cost. 
What should be a personal expense and what a national, has 
always been a vexatious question. In the Office of the Comp- 
troller of the Treasury, who follows the appropriation acts 
with minute literalness, disallowance of a White House 
voucher is by no means uncommon. The automobiles and 
carriages and carriage-horses are paid for and maintained at 
public cost; but the riding-horses he must buy and care for 
himself. In addition, he has $25,000 to pay travelling ex- 
penses for himself, secretaries and guests. The Government 



THE WHITE HOUSE 211 

allows him a barber — at $1600 a year — for himself and his 
guests, and provides cooks and other servants for his family 
since in fact his household is never without official guests. 
But his family buys its own postage stamps and theoretically 
a private letter from the President is not "franked" but 
stamped. As head of the army, he is attended by the Surgeon- 
General or other physician who looks out for his health and 
often visits him or travels with him. The annual cost of the 
White House is about $285,000 a year, but this includes all 
the dozen or score of salaries to the President's official clerks. 
This allowance antedates a salary to the President, for Wash- 
ington would accept no salary but did accept the refund of his 
actual expenses. It is a curious feature of these costs, taken 
comparatively that Jefferson spent six or seven thousand dol- 
lars a year on wines for his guests, out of his own pocket, 
Hayes refused to allow wines and liquors to be served in the 
White House, while Roosevelt, himself virtually a non-user, 
sent in annual bills of from fourteen to seventeen thousand 
dollars for wines for his state dinners. Jefferson died insol- 
vent. The fifty thousand dollars worth of wine drunk in his 
eight years of social necessity told the story. Had he been 
President one hundred years later, — the Roosevelt time, — he 
might have retired with a snug competence. 

Salary of the President. — Lincoln was paid $103,000 to 
fight the Civil War through for us. Though he had a family, 
he managed to save a few thousand dollars each year out of 
his $25,000 salary. Grant drew $50,000 a year. The salary 
was raised for Taft to $75,000. For the direction of an expen- 
diture of $1,100,000,000, it is little enough compared with 
salaries in business. Probably for a long, long time to come, 
no man will be elected President whose friends cannot raise 
for his nomination and election at least five or six millions of 
dollars. 

Buchanan and his Comptroller of the Treasury construed 
A'Vhite House costs so severely against himself that though he 
was a bachelor whose niece presided over his home for him, 
he came out of his term poorer than when he went in. But 
with the present salary, it is as likely as it is desirable that a 
solvent man becoming President may anticipate that a single 
term will leave him to enjoy his later old age in reasonable 



212 PRESIDENTIAL POWERS 

financial comfort, from returns upon the investment of sav- 
ings from his salary. 

Hard Work in the Greatest Comfort. — The Presidency 
is hard work and responsibility not easily measureable under 
relatively luxurious conditions. After it is over, the former 
President has earned, if he so desires, leisure with dignity.^ 
But he will no longer be able to spend money upon the White 
House scale. Its annual cost of a quarter of a million dollars 
would require the income of a five-millionaire. 

'^But see p. 62, supra. 



PART THREE 
LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 



"Show me the men, and I shall show you the laws." 

— Scottish Proverb of the Fifteenth Century. 



CHAPTER I 

George Washington 

1789-1797 
1732-1799 

13-16 States. 1790 — Population 3,929,214 

Thirteen original States : New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia. Admitted : Vermont, Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee. 

The sifting of the civil war — a social revolution as well as a war of 
independence — new elements in population — why not king? — ancestry 
— wealth — the Fairfax family — woodcraft — visits Barbadoes — inherits 
fortune of brother — visits Ohio country — Indian fighter — Fort Neces- 
sity — Braddock's Defeat — in anger visits Boston — ill health — helps at* 
Fort Duquesne — scandals — marriage — copious in letter-writing — silent 

of tongue his slaves — Mount Vernon — fox-hunter — member of 

House of Burgesses — dines with Governor Dunmore — ^but supports 
rebel cause — delegate to Congress in 1774 and in 1775 — Commander- 
in-chief — immense physical strength — campaigns from Cambridge to 
Yorktown reviewed — brilliant Benedict Arnold — military friendships — 
hard work — severe critic of speculators — courage — resigns and asks 
Congress for money due — Mount Vernon again — land-purchases in 
the West — Annapolis Convention — President of Federal Constitutional 
Convention — first signer — the verdict of history — unanimously elected 
President — rise of two parties, Federalists and anti-Federalists — reads 
his messages to Congress — appointments in the executive branch — a 
little incident in which John Hancock figured — Indian wars — the State 
debts — the National Capital — Alexander Hamilton — Thomas Jefferson 
—the Whiskey Rebellion— the so-called "Scotch-Irish"— the foreign 
policy — Citizen Genet — the Farewell Address — threatened war with 
France — causes of his death — the'^great fortune left by Washington — 
he helped to change the histpry of the world — a strong centraliza- 

215 



2i6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

tionist — "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his country- 



men. 



Sifted Out by the Civil Revolution, — "Formed to con- 
trol men, not amaze," — such is the phrase that James Russell 
Lowell in the Commemoration Ode used in that final critical 
judgment which is commonly accorded alone to poets. To 
control means to draw together. It is a beautiful word, and 
it does indeed fitly estimate the character of the first Presi- 
dent, after he had learned no longer to amaze men. 

It was a happy event that when in 1788 the people voted 
and in 1789 the Electoral College met to record their will, all 
had voted for one man. Had he been a lesser man, it would 
still have been a happy event, portentous to thrones every- 
where, significant of the dawn of a new day, announcing the 
nova or do saeclorum as the great seal of the United States 
declares. 

The Changed Population. — Four million men and women 
and children, almost the very babies themselves, believed that 
they knew the worth of George Washington. It was a selected 
population. Many heroes had died during the long grinding 
of the Revolution, some in battle, some in prison-ships, some 
gf hardship, disease, poverty; a few had perhaps died of a 
normal old age. From the old colonial population of perhaps 
two and a half million in 1770, — not more, — a hundred thou- 
sand who preferred King George had been exiled, most of 
them by force, a few by their own choice. Among them were 
men of subordinate disposition who love masters, — helots, 
bureaucrats, easy-going traditionalists who will not really think 
for themselves, gentlemen of birth and breeding; and they 
called themselves "loyalists." "Sent to Halifax" was the 
popular phrase that covered the cases of them all. In fact, 
Massachusetts did ship tens of thousands to Halifax, and Sam 
Adams said "nay" to their plea to be allowed to come back. 
He meant not to have their breed represented in the new nation. 
In that epoch, "go to Halifax" was not a meaningless objur- 
gation. His action as government probably caused the failure 
of President Taft, a century later, to win Canada for reci- 
procity in trade. Their children remembered and reciprocated 
in sentiment. 

Into the vacuums created here and there by the fortunes of 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 217 

changing war, after 1775, a new element poured. For all the 
battling and other guarreling, America became a seductive 
word. The migration from Europe that had ceased after the 
founding of Philadelphia, — to be revived but briefly when 
Georgia was founded, — began again after 1776; and grew and 
grew after the French treaty of 1778. New families came 
from England itself, from Ireland and Scotland, from France, 
from Holland and Germany, from Canada. Thousands of 
King George's Hessian hirelings either stayed or went to Ger- 
many and then returned, — they liked the land and the people 
against whom they had been hired as war-slaves. Thousands 
of the free soldiers of King Louis of France stayed ; or going 
back dutifully, when released from service, returned with 
wives, sometimes with children. This new element totalled in 
all likelihood, — we have no accurate statistics, — six hundred 
thousand, perhaps three-quarters of a million. And a million 
and more little new children were born in an age still of pro- 
lific births. It was a prosperous time, — though men "talked 
poor." 

Why Not King. — The Whigs of 1770 had become the 
Patriots of 1776 and the Americans of 1788. Legally child- 
less leaders do not favor royal dynasties. Everyone who knew 
Washington, — and in 1 788 he was by far the best known man 
in the United States, — knew that he had outgrown the idea of 
an American empire. He regarded no man as fit to be a king. 

Ancestry. — George Washington was born February 22, 
1732, at Bridges Creek on the south side of the Potomac, half 
a hundred miles below what is now the city that bears his 
name. His great-grandfather had come over from England 
in 1657, after the overthrow of King Charles the First, and 
it is abundantly established that he was a Cavalier and King's 
supporter. The Washingtons were plantation-owners and 
among the wealthiest of the colonials in America, where they 
bore themselves with something of the stiff pride and all of 
the rude vigor of their English ancestors, who were knights 
and gentlemen and yeomen of indisputable Norman stock. 
George was the first child of his father's second wife, Mary 
Ball, and was one of ten children. The father died In 1743 
at the age of forty-nine years ; and much of his property de- 
scended by primogeniture to his oldest son Lawrence, half- 
brother of George. But even so, the widow's resources were 



2i8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

ample, and all the children were good friends. Lawrence mar- 
ried a daughter of William Fairfax, landed proprietor and 
owner or agent of the vast Fairfax family estates mainly 
beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

The Fairfax Family. — In 1747 George went to visit his 
brother Lawrence at a time when Thomas Lord Fairfax of 
England was living in Virginia. Lord Fairfax was a man of 
the world, a bachelor of sixty years, who immediately fancied 
the fifteen-year-old lad for a friend. Next year he sent the 
youth out to survey his properties. 

In this period, George Washington was already nearly six 
feet tall, with light blue eyes and light brown hair, and with 
a square and heavy jaw. They called him "big, fair and florid." 

Woodcraft. — ^With the lad upon this adventure into the 
wilderness went George Fairfax, brother of Mrs. Lawrence 
Washington. They surveyed the Shenandoah valley and the 
Potomac in the vicinity, — sleeping in tents or under the stars, 
meeting with Indians and a few stray settlers, and learning 
woodcraft. In work of this adventurous character as a public 
surveyor, Washington spent his time for three years. In it he 
acquired yet more robust muscular strength, physical hardi- 
hood and industrious habits. At this business he earned from 
a "doubloon to six pistoles a day," as the young man proudly 
wrote to a friend. 

Such was the foundation of George Washington ; but he saw 
also during this period the lighter and brighter and darker 
sides of life, — fox-hunting, dancing at Greenaway Court, the 
Fairfax manor-house, roystering in the backwoods nights and 
book-reading in bad weather. 

Visits Barbadoes. — In 1751 George went with his half- 
brother Lawrence to Barbadoes in the West Indies, where he 
took smallpox, being ill for a month. A year later Lawrence 
died of consumption, leaving his daughter to George as guar- 
dian and protector of her estates. George was now a major 
of militia, well taught in the manual of arms and also in fenc- 
ing; and sword-play. 

In 1753, when but twenty-one years of age, Washington 
was sent to the Ohio river country by Governor Dinwiddle to 
discover the plans of the French and the bearing of the Indians. 
On this expedition, he and his sole companion, a famous fron- 
tiersman, Christopher Gist, once tried to cross a river on a 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 219 

raft ; Washington fell into the water amid floating ice, and in 
his frozen clothes passed the night afterward on an island. 

Fort Necessity. — May 27, 1754 saw Washington in his 
first fight with the French and Indians, His company slew 
ten of them and took twenty-one prisoners, and official France 
was soon in an uproar over the battle at Great Meadows. 
After this fight, Washington, now become a colonel through 
the death of the commander of the expedition, built Fort 
Necessity. And there at Great Meadows, July 4, 1754, sur- 
rounded by a force four times as great as his own, in a drench- 
ing rain that made his muskets useless, he surrendered, — 
upon a parole not to fight for a year, — and with his arms re- 
turned to the Capital of Virginia, Williamsburg. Let us not 
praise the young man too highly. The Seneca chief, Half- 
King, Thanacarishon, said of the Fort Necessity affair, that 
"The French acted like cowards, the English like fools." 

Indian Fighter. — Like a Norseman of old, the young 
man loved fierce fighting and great danger. He had to learn 
discretion. And we never, never get great men the other way 
about. No heroic great man begins by being discreet and pro- 
ceeds to have courage, none. 

Fretted by the insolence of the King's orders and officers, 
and in bad health, Washington then withdrew from military 
affairs for a brief season of agricultural direction upon his 
mother's and his own lands. 

Braddock^s Defeat. — The year 1755 brings us to Colonel 
Washington as the right-hand man of General Edward Brad- 
dock. All the world knows of that affair of July 8th, of the 
ambush, the death of Braddock, the saving of a remnant of 
the army by the unflinching courage and brilliant leadership 
of Washington in the battle and in the retreat; he was but. 
twenty-three years old even now ! Two horses were shot under 
him. Four bullets went through his coat. It was an extra- 
ordinary affair beyond melodrama and other fiction. Four 
days later, they laid in his grave the body of the British regular 
who could not take advice either from the mature Franklin or 
the youthful Washington ; who solemnly read the funeral ser- 
vices for the dead, there in the primitive wild. 

It was a lesson to him, — the British disciplined troops could 
be beaten even by Indians, 

Visits Boston. — George Washington was now the first 



220 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

military man in Virginia, the only man who could save its 
towns and plantations from ravage and ruin by the French 
and Indians. Year after year, ill-supplied with money, ill- 
supported by soldiery, in a world of panic and fear, upon the 
farthest edges of the frontier, Washington, now a general but 
almost without an army, kept back the invaders along a line 
of three hundred and fifty miles. 

At one time, he must go in rather braggadocio style on fine 
horses all the way to Boston to see Governor Shirley and get 
a matter righted; a captain with the King's commission had 
set himself up to rule over the Virginia general of volunteers. 
In this epoch, Washington wrote scathing letters and alto- 
gether conducted himself precisely as we should expect such a 
young soldier, rich, healthy and brave, to conduct himself 
when betrayed by scoundrels, insulted by pompous nobodies, 
and baffled by circumstance. Early in 1758, the health even 
of Washington again broke down, and he went home to 
Mount Vernon to get well. Later in the year, he led the van- 
guard for the invalid General Forbes, sent out by William 
Pitt. They took Fort Duquesne and named the new defences 
Fort Pitt. 

Marriage. — Of the early love and other affairs of Wash- 
ington, there are many traditions and some documents, appar- 
ently of his own writing. The latter, if true, should be believed ; 
if spurious, should be bought by decent patriots of means and 
burned. He was notoriously susceptible to feminine charms ; 
and yet several excellent young ladies rejected his ardent woo- 
ing. One brave and gallant claimant upon his paternity was 
an aide upon his own military staff. But posterity has chosen 
to ignore — for awhile — even the question about Washington, 
and to accept the truth about Franklin. 

Though fair yotmg well-born maidens turned away from 
his wooing, at last Washington won the widow of Daniel 
Parke Custis, born Martha Dandridge; and became step- 
father to her two children and sharer in her estates and goods, 
which were beyond his own. She was three months his 
junior, and looked petite at the side of his immense figure. 
She needed a husband, her children needed a father, and her 
estates needed a manager. 

There was a brilliant wedding at which Washington grati- 
fied to the limit his love of fine clothes The bridegroom wore 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 221 

blue and silver trimmed with scarlet, with gold buckles at his 
knees and on his shoes ; the bride, silk, satin, lace and brocades 
with pearls on her neck and in her ears. British officers in 
redcoats and goldlace adorned the scene. 

Silent of Tongue. — Three months later, Washington, 
being twenty-seven years of age, became a member of the 
House of Burgesses. The Speaker spoke eloquently of his 
services, and the youthful general rose to reply but failed, 
whereupon the graceful Mr. Robinson relieved his confusion 
by saying, "Sit down, Mr. Washington ; your modestly equals 
your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I 
possess!" And we who read of this occurrence recall that 
George Washington presided over the Constitutional Con- 
vention in 1787 for four months and never made a single 
speech nor said anything save what was absolutely necessary 
in the way of parliamentary ruling. 

Silent! George Washington goes down into history as a 
man who loved to talk with his friends at table and who wrote 
many, many letters, — perhaps more than any other American 
until the days of expert stenographers and typewriters, — but 
who never made a speech. In public, he was a doer of the 
word, not a teller, not an exhorter. History, however, is 
obliged to record that he early lost all his teeth and did not 
acquire even the famous uncomfortable hinged false teeth of 
ivory until he was President. 

Inherits Fortune of Brother. — Upon the death of the 
daughter of his brother Lawrence, Washington inherited all 
her estates. His wife brought to the family in gold a quarter 
of a million dollars. And it is well to understand that with- 
out his great wealth, Washington with his measure of ability 
could not have put the Revolutionary War through to final 
success. No Sam Adams, dependent upon the charity of 
friends for new suits of clothes, could have led the Patriot 
Army through seven years of struggle and vicissitude. 

His Slaves. — George Washington now set out to becorne 
a successful planter. His wheat flour became prominent in 
the London market. He raised large quantities of good 
tobacco. His horses were thoroughbred. But his farming 
was all done with slave-labor ; his milling likewise. It is said, 
in his defence, perhaps not with literal truth, that he "never 
bought or sold one slave." Over his negroes, he maintained 



222 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

military discipline; but tradition says that he gave far more 
than ordinary care to their shelter, clothing and food. 

Mount Vernon. — ^This is the first Mount Vernon home 
period of his life, — when he enjoyed his beautiful house 
and estate with its broad vista over the Potomac river, with 
his family and guests and with a steady hope that the troubles 
threatening upon the horizon would all blow over. He was 
considered the first military man in all the colonies and by 
many in the North regard as the first of American gentlemen. 
His hard, adventurous youth and early manhood were passed ; 
and he had risen to the calmer, less passionate, more 
methodical days of mature life. What the future contained, 
he did not in the least see or suspect. He was not a moral or 
social reformer but quite ready to take life as he found it 
and to make it as successful as possible. 

Much of his time, he spent in fox-hunting, often with his 
stepson "Jacky" Custis as his sole companion. In all his 
delight in good living and in social gayety upon his estate 
and with his friends among the country neighbors and at 
Williamsburg, the Colonial Capital, the fighter in him was 
only asleep, not dead. 

The Episode of the Poacher. — ^We read of one entirely 
characteristic adventure. He had warned a poacher off his 
lands. One day, he found him again shooting his canvas- 
back ducks in the water courses along the Potomac river 
front. When the trespasser levelled his gun at Washington 
to drive him away, the latter urged his horse into the water, 
seized the man, boat and gun, dragged them ashore, and then 
gave the poacher a beating. The poacher troubled Washing- 
ton no more. The incident displays his good qualities; and 
shall we say some of his bad? Washington loved property 
and intended to maintain his property rights; he was totally 
devoid of fear and laughed at danger — ^What cared he for a 
poacher's gun ? His temper was hot. The fact that the man 
was landless, penniless and desperate did not stay his hand. 
He was the justly angry lord, the trespasser a rascal deserving 
chastisement; and Washington was policeman enough per- 
sonally to attend to the matter. 

Member House of Burgesses. — The county sent Wash- 
ington to the House of Burgesses where he had great in- 
fluence from his wealth, his reputation, his personal bearing 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 223 

and his vigorous character. He heard there the Tarquin 
speech of slender Patrick Henry, four years his junior; and 
assented heartily, soon becoming a leader of the Virginia non- 
importation party, which vigorously supported the radicalism 
of Samuel Adams. 

Rebel, yet Polite. — When the Burgesses appointed June 
I, 1769, as a day of fasting and prayer and of considera- 
tion of the direfiil Boston Port Bill, Washington had fasted 
and prayed and considered; but the very day that the Bur- 
gesses so voted, he could not resist the fascination of an 
invitation to dine with Governor Dunmore and to dance at 
the ball with Lady Dunmore. He had the delight of the ever- 
rising man in being called into the company of the yet greater; 
and he loved dinners and dances — with or without his wife. 

In the fateful last days of the colonial period, Washington 
wrote to his old friend Bryan Fairfax characterizing General 
Gage of Massachusetts as a "Turkish bashaw," and his course 
as "unexampled testimony of the most despotic system of 
tyranny ever practiced in a free government." No "whining" 
for relief, no "supine" sitting for George Washington, even 
if his logic about tyranny and free government was a little 
mixed. Upon August i, 1774, he stands right up in meeting 
at Williamsburg and thus delivers himself, — "I will raise a 
thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march 
them to the relief of Boston." 

Truthful history is obliged to record that at this time, 
Washington was a claimant of the King's government in 
London for a perfected title to 30,000 acres of land in the 
West, and that his agents were being balked exasperatingly 
by pettifogging legalists and red tape officials and clerks. 

In Congress in Full Dress Uniform. — George Wash- 
ington was a delegate to the Continental Congress of 1774. 
with its interesting membership of shipowners, rnerchants, 
lawyers, and planters. When the sessions were over, he made 
Mount Vernon a rendezvous for the friends and acquaint- 
ances of the French and Indian wars. He went to the 
revolutionary convention at Richmond and heard Patrick 
Henry cry, — "Give me liberty, or give me death !" And again 
answered "Yea" by beginning to organize companies of sol- 
diers. 

Next spring Washington heard the news of Lexington and 



224 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Concord, and went up to Philadelphia resolved upon his 
course. He wrote to his now aged friend George Fairfax 
in England, "The plains of America are either to be drenched 
in blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But can a 
virtuous man hesitate in his choice ?" 

The critical question was: "Would Congress declare for 
peace or for war?" Washington was for war. And he sat 
there in the Second Continental Congress with his blue and 
buff uniform of the Virginia colonel upon him as if to say, — 
"I'm ready." When on June 15, 1775, John Adams, intend- 
ing to persuade the Continental Congress to adopt ofificially 
the militia of New England and Long Island about Boston, 
arose to nominate him commander-in-chief, — rich John Han- 
cock was his only rival, — Washington withdrew from the 
hall. Six days later, he set forth upon his second journey to 
Boston; to meet twenty miles out a messenger bearing the 
great news of the battle of Bunker Hill. "Did the militia 
fight?" he asked. 

"Yes." 

And he replied, "Then the liberties of the country are safe." 

Commander-in-Chief. — Washington was now forty-three 
years of age. For all his good eating and drinking, he had 
kept his muscles. He had seen the country, — he had been to 
the Ohio river three times, to Boston once, to Philadelphia 
often. He knew the sea. He could ride horseback incom- 
parably well; yet was never to learn how to organize and 
to handle cavalry in action. He could walk and run cross- 
country, swim, fence, shoot. He understood accounting and 
surveying, and had read about engineering, finance and war- 
strategy. He was familiar with the colonial great men, and 
himself lorded it over the lesser, — a manner and a notion that 
he was to outgrow with experience. And now he must com- 
mand soldiers who elect their own captains and make out of 
militia an army to drive the British out of Boston. He is the 
gentleman aristocrat who will help a whole land escape from 
monarchy and bureaucracy into representative democracy. 

The story of George Washington, the Patriot General, 
from his taking command under the elm-tree at Cambridge 
until the sword of CornwalHs is gracefully handed back at 
Yorktown is material enough for many books. The world 
will never tire of its main features. From Cambridge he 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 225 

writes home, — "I have made a pretty good slam amongst 
such kind of officers as the Massachusetts government 
abounds in, since I came into this camp, having broke one 
colonel and two captains for cowardly behavior in the action 
on Bunker Hill, two captains for drawing more pay and 
provisions than they had men in their company, and one for 
being absent from his post when the enemy appeared. 
Besides these, I have at this time one colonel, 
one major, one captain and two subalterns under arrest for 
trial. In short, I spare none; and yet fear it will not all do, 
as these people seem to be too attentive to everything but 
their own interests." 

Many of them stood for all that he was and did; they knew 
what his performances had been at Braddock's defeat. And 
yet more than half of them soon were home again. Through- 
out the war, Washington must deal with a Congress of talkers 
and theorists and in too many instances cheap politicians, with 
Governors of States in their political infancy, with factionaries 
and traitors in his army, with inadequate supplies and muni- 
tions of war, with alien elements and every manner of incom- 
petence and ill-will. Four things carried him through; first, 
his own indomitable fortitude; second, the pride of his faith- 
ful soldiers in the high and valiant way in which their general 
carried himself; third, the unwillingness of the Howes, Gen- 
eral and Admiral, Whigs, to help the Tories too much, being 
themselves also lazy and happy with their wine and women; 
and, finally, the coming of the French. 

Under the conditions, Washington was a good field-com- 
mander, improving with practice; and he was more than 
simply a soldier. He saw the war in its larger relations, send- 
ing Arnold to win Canada, who lost, however, by a fluke 
upon the Plains of Abraham. 

Washington was keen for those little details which delight 
soldiers' hearts but drive away the weaklings and the 
fractious. Every man knew that he preferred to lead in front, 
not to direct from the rear. Perhaps, he held too many 
councils of war with his subordinates, in the fashion of 
American "levelling"; but often he overruled them, for he 
knew that one good mind alone is better than one good mind 
submerged by several lesser ones. He preferred battle to siege 



226 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

and to delay. And he understood perfectly the pomp and cir- 
cumstance of war; and dressed to look his chief part. 

But limitations of space forbid us to follow General Wash- 
ington from Dorchester Heights to New York and Long 
Island, — to New Jersey and Trenton, — to Philadelphia, — to 
Valley Forge, — to Monmouth, — to Morristown, until he 
swoops down upon the British at Yorktown where, shut in 
from the sea by the French ships of Count de Grasse, the 
13,000 British surrendered to the 15,000 Americans and 
French. 

At Boston, he had 14,000 soldiers; after the defeat at the 
Long Island battle scarcely 4000; even less at Valley Forge 
after the failures at Germantown and the Brandywine ; nearly 
thirteen thousand at Monmouth. Generally, the British out- 
numbered him two to one. In 1781, they had 120,000 men in 
America, and spent upon the war one hundred million dollars. 

It is sometimes said that the Patriots could not have won 
but for the assistance of the French. It might have been added 
that the British could not have fought but for their thirty 
thousand Hessian hirelings and twenty-five thousand Ameri- 
can Loyalists, for this was a civil war. 

There are several features of the story of George Wash- 
ington during the Revolution that are noteworthy, some in- 
trinsically, some because of their bearing upon his policies as 
President of the United States. 

His Physical Strength. — There is a well authenticated 
story that tells of his physical strength. In the early morning 
of that memorable Christmas at Trenton, he came upon three 
soldiers trying to lift some tent equipment into a wagon and 
unable to do so. He leaned over, seizing all the stuff in his 
very long arms and with one mighty swing heaved the para- 
phernalia into the wagon. Small wonder that such soldiers 
as he could keep together admired, worshipped, idolized the 
amazing man. When, from Valley Forge, he wrote. 'T feel 
for them superabundantly," he wrote, as always in mature 
life, the truth as he saw it. Often he wept among the slain. 

The winter at Morristown two years after Valley Forge 
was quite as trying as the misery of the huts on the bleak hill- 
sides by the Schuylkill, where Aaron Burr stood as first 
sentry toward Germantown. The General would sit at dinner 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 227 

usually over nuts and wine for hours and hours chatting with 
his officers and guests. 

Hard Worker. — Perhaps the most absurd of all the ab- 
surd notions that prevails, by a false tradition, regarding 
Washington is that he was not intellectually clever. Great- 
ness is conceded to him, but not "smartness." He wrote ai 
prodigious number of letters usually in his own hand. Often 
for weeks and weeks in camp, he wrote letters for six, ten, 
fifteen hours every day. Some day, his letters will all be 
printed, unless "piety" continues to conceal such as are un- 
printable for ordinary circulation. He wrote, wrote, wrote 
-the nation into being. He persuaded the American people to 
let him convert the militia into an army. Let the British have 
their towns, — let them have New York, Philadelphia, Charles- 
ton. A Patriot Army will win in the end : if only, it can be 
secured. To get this army, he must convince men everywhere. 
Therefore, he writes letters everywhere. 

Prodigious Letter- Writer. — Many of these letters are 
phrased in terms that in a literary man would be accounted 
clever. 

When we read of the naked, starving soldiers at Valley 
Forge and again at Morristown, it is hard to credit the fact 
that many other Americans were getting rich. Of these, 
Washington wrote his friend Benjamin Reed, a Philadelphia 
lawyer, in December, 1778, — "It gives me sincere pleasure 
to find that the assembly (of Pennsylvania) is so well dis- 
posed to second your endeavors in bringing these murderers 
of our cause, the monopolizers, forestallers and engrossers, 
to condign punishment. It's much to be lamented that each 
State, long ere this, has not hunted them down as pests to 
society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of 
America. I would to God that some one of the most atro- 
cious in each State was hung in gibbets upon a gallows five 
times as high as the one prepared for Haman. No punish- 
ment, in my opinion, is too great for the man who can build 
his greatness upon his country's ruin." 

Severe Critic of Speculators. — ^At the same time, he 
wrote to Benjamin Harrison, — "Idleness, dissipation, and 
extravagance seem to have laid fast hold of most of them; 
speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches 
seem to have got the better of every other consideration." 



228 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

This is not the language of a man weak in thought or in 
expression and strong only in action. 

It is indeed interesting, — in a population of two and a half 
millions, — a half million being adult males, — only a few thou- 
sand dare and care to bear arms for liberty; and their leader, 
almost the richest man of them all but so short of cash that 
often for months he cannot even for himself buy some 
common articles of diet — while some other natives are getting 
rich and yet richer by staying at home and grabbing dollars. 

Let us look at it straight : do we wonder that George Wash- 
ington was never very enthusiastic over John Hancock ? And 
abhorred the Loyalists and the time-servers? And loved 
Robert Morris, who went forth one Christmas day and begged 
$50,000 in gold out of the pockets of his Philadelphia neigh- 
bors for the army of Washington? 

Brilliant Benedict Arnold. — Washington probably saw 
through Benedict Arnold. He admired his bravery but he 
never trusted his character. Arnold had been married but 
was a widower with three sons early in the war. He had 
also two natural sons. In this shape, he paid court to the 
beautiful Tory girl Margaret Shippen. Washington had a 
friendly sympathy for Arnold until the treason resulted from 
personal grievances and from desire for wealth. It was a 
different age. Save in the highest circles, it was more of a 
disgrace for a woman to be childless than to be an unwedded 
mother. And Mistress Margaret, in the highest circles, led 
Benedict Arnold on to his ruin because every girl must marry, 
and few refused any offers of marriage. But how terrible 
was the wrath of Washington over the attempt to betray West 
Point! 

The Sincerity of Washington. — ^The entire war, the 
entire social revolution may have been a mistake. We paid 
high prices for independence — learning brutality, seeing cor- 
ruption, losing the better-born, tearing loose from the strong- 
est nation on earth. But whatever else we may think of 
Washington, to him belongs admiration for the sincerity of a 
passion for freedom and an equal love for the soldiers and 
supporters of freedom. It may be that he saw his chance to 
be greatest of all ; but at least he risked life, limb and estate 
for the chance. 

The Commander-in-Chief organized the victories of Gates 



■ GEORGE WASHINGTON 5229 

at Saratoga and of Greene in the South. He set the the 
privateersmen upon their victories on the high seas. He 
selected those useful adventurers from beyond seas, — Hamil- 
ton, Steuben, and above all, LaFayette, — and rejected or sub- 
ordinated all the rest of the free lances who flocked to the 
international battle-field. 

When in going up the Potomac, a British fleet was 
turned aside by Lund Washington from burning down the 
Mount Vernon house, George Washington wrote indignantly 
that he wished that the house of the Commander-in-chief had 
been burned — to hearten the Patriots. 

And when at Yorktown, the crisis came, he must, in Brad- 
dock field fashion, stand where the cannon balls roar and the 
bullets hit, and lead the fight. When victory at last is seen 
to have been won, he turns to Knox, and in the triumphant 
hour that ends six terrible years says, — "The work is done, 
and well done. Bring me my horse." 

Resigns and Asks for Money Due. — In June, 1781, 
George Washington was forty-nine years of age; and one of 
the two most famous generals in the world, the other being 
Frederic the Great of Prussia. There stood to his credit 
several military achievements, — the clever, even brilliant, ex- 
ploits at Trenton and Princeton, the terrific fighting at Mon- 
mouth where his personal heroism won the victory, and the 
long strategy of the Yorktown campaign. For two years 
longer, he had to hold on while his army was neglected. He 
feared, properly, that England might renew vigorous warfare. 
He feared and hated, for good cause, as he believed, the 
Loyalists and time-servers and the Indians. There were en- 
counters in one region and another that history has been too 
lazy to emphasize. But finally the day of release came. And 
before Congress, assembled at Annapolis, to which it had 
retreated from its own weakness, late in 1783, General Wash- 
ington formally presented his resignation and his bill of 
expenses. 

At Mount Vernon. — The second Mount Vernon period 
lasted five years. In it Washington repaired his properties, 
started new enterprises, renewed his social ties, in a measure 
recovered the health that he had almost lost in the eight weary, 
vexatious years, and counselled the new nation regarding its 
future. He was easily first among surviving Americans, a 



230 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

world-figure, a hero for all ages. He saw himself as "Gen- 
eral Washington" and conducted himself, his correspondence 
and his social relations accordingly. He had redeemed him- 
self from many errors of the past. Some things that he had 
hitherto enjoyed with a zest beyond most men, he was too old 
for now, — one was fox-hunting to hounds. But he rode 
hours daily in the saddle. In two striking ways, his character 
was changed. He had grown cautious without growing hesi- 
tant or timid or indolent ; but he measured notions, impulses, 
words, actions more carefully. And he had grown into a 
deeper sympathy with poor and plain persons ; especially with 
his soldiers. 

Land Purchases in the West. — With the war-interests 
now but matters of memory, the foresightedness that in him 
was always his first quality was widely displayed. Alone of 
all prominent Americans, he saw the meaning of the Western 
country. There he saw also the increase of his own riches. 
More than any other American, he saw the advantage of ai 
national government. He was the moving spirit in the con- 
vention at Annapolis in the special interest of Maryland and 
Virginia to which all the States were invited. 

President of the Federal Constitutional Convention. 
— George Washington was sent unanimously as a delegate to 
the Federal Convention at Philadelphia in 1 787 and was 
chosen unanimously as its President. Through the four 
months of summer and early fall, he was present at every 
meeting and left the chair but once to speak ; this was to urge 
the reduction of the minimum of population for Congressional 
Districts in electing members of the House of Representatives 
from forty thousand to thirty thousand. He was the first to 
sign the new Constitution. Tradition declares that as he stood 
at the table with the quill-pen in his hand to write, he said, — • 
"Should the States reject this excellent Constitution, the prob- 
ability is that opportunity will never be offered to cancel 
another in peace; the next will be drawn in blood." It is a 
sentence that sounds like a soldier and a statesman. That it 
was the truth, no man can doubt. Nor can any man doubt 
that the Constitution saved Washington himself from being 
made, against his own will, King. 

We of later generations forget how strong that monarchical 
movement was. For all that most of "the King's friends" in 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 231 

America had been exiled and the others reduced to poverty, 
there were hundreds of thousands who were full of the Euro- 
pean traditions of monarchy and aristocracy and nobility. In 
1783 Washington had but to say the word; and the Army 
would have marched to Philadelphia to make him King, He 
had to resist strenuously the efforts of army leaders to set up 
a monarchy even against his will. 

In truth, however, George Washington had one objection 
to the Constitution. He thought that it was not strong 
enough. Just what he would have liked to see changed in it we do 
not know. He told no one. But neither he nor anyone else 
foresaw how powerful the Supreme Court would be made 
through the acumen and strength of Chief Justice Marshall. 
But he desired the National Government to be strong for the 
landed citizen's self-government, not for a king's govern- 
ment. He was no Napoleon Bonaparte, no Julius Caesar, no 
Oliver Cromwell even. He was a new kind of conqueror and 
rebel; and he made the name George Washington uniquely 
glorious, so glorious as completely to hide his faults in its 
overwhelming light. For practical purposes, who cares for 
the spots on the sun? 

The Verdict of History. — The man who had methodi- 
cally kept accounts of all his expenditures, and who in a busi- 
ness manner after giving up his commission as General to 
Congress and hearing its praise, had then risen and calmly 
presented his bill, — sixty-nine thousand dollars, — was a new 
man in world-history. If, as was charged, he had "grafted" 
as Commander-in-Chief, no one believes it now. If he de- 
sired national independence that he might be free to acquire 
immense areas of land, no one believes it now. He comes 
down in American history as a patriotic rich man, an intelli- 
gent good man, an heroic soldier, a statesman with big ideas 
and yet minute interest in details, a just man able to consider 
and to balance, and yet capable of prompt and vigorous deci- 
sion. Such a Washington may be partly mythical, but there 
is a deal of truth in the myth. There is none righteous — per- 
fectly righteous, — none wise — perfectly wise, no, not one. 

Elected President of the People of the United 
States Unanimously. — When the enfranchised 125,000 
citizens of the United States cast about for a President to 
set up the executive and judicial departments of the new 



232 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

government, they unanimously chose George Washington. 
175,000 men and 300,000 women of adult years could not 
vote. But of the privileged classes, almost none were opposed 
to him, not even the surviving Loyalists. 

In a sense, we already had a legislative department and 
a legislative tradition. Of courts, there was nothing. Of 
administrators, there were but few; and these were failures 
whether officers or clerks of the inefficient, though by 1787 
well-meaning, Congress of the Confederation. 

Under President Washington, affairs did not drift; he 
drove them. From the time that his election was certain, 
until the last davs of his second term, he directed, and in a 
large measure controlled, events and issues. Unquestionably, 
he was one of the most vigorous of our Chief Magistrates. 
Between the difficulties that beset George Washington and 
those besetting Abraham Lincoln, there is no choice. But 
Washington had two great personal advantages, — ^private 
wealth and its ease and prestige, and a large measure of public 
confidence from the start. 

Within a month of his inauguration in New York, Wash- 
ington had a serious illness, — a carbuncle of the thigh. But 
with his usual self-control, he went bravely on — guiding af- 
fairs from his sick room daily. It is by no means true of 
most Presidents but it is true of him that his own history is 
the history of his country. He was the wheel-horse of the 
whole new National Government. 

Rise of Two Parties. — Notwithstanding the personal as- 
cendancy of the President, the country was already divided, 
from the old days of the Confederation, into the Federalists 
and anti-Federalists of various degrees. The same struggle 
has run through American political history to this day. We 
may use various other names, — centralization and localization, 
nationalism and sectionalism, federalism and State's rights, 
socialism and individualism ; but they all set up the same dis- 
tinctions, differences, controversies. George Washington 
was forced to take Federalists or probable Federalist converts 
for all offices high and low. The opposition men declined all 
his proffers of office. He had meant to make one nation out 
of thirteen colonies in the days of war. He now meant to 
make one nation out of all the States and parties and Interests. 
All that he did was done in the light of this guiding purpose, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 233 

but he wished to get into the service both the friends and the 
opponents of the existing new government. The latter de- 
clined, and Federalist and one-party government came in so 
that we had a two-party people. This probably saved us from 
apparent unity with real factionalism and cliquism. As Presi- 
dent, he had at last learned to act upon principles carefully de- 
termined and thoroughly applied. 

Reads His First Message to Congress. — Up;on consid- 
eration, President Washington decided to read his message to 
Congress. He rode up to the Hall of Congress in a coach and 
four with outriders and footmen, and went through a simple, 
stately, and thoroughly characteristic ceremonial. Jefferson 
did away with this personal appearance before Congress — 
in the interest of "Republican simplicity," so he said; but in 
reality because he was a poor public speaker and a vain man. 
Washington was no public speaker at all but though dignified 
and impressive, not at all vain, being essentially modest. He 
understood well the value of personal display as a means of 
influencing men's opinions ; and he liked to meet people be- 
cause he had justifiable confidence in his own personality. 

His Cabinet. — He sent for all the records of the Con- 
federation and familiarized himself with the state of public 
affairs. So far as he had any, he formed his theories from his 
facts. While doing this arduous work, he organized the 
executive branch into three departments, — war, treasury, and 
state, to rank in that order, — with an attorney-general to ad- 
vise in all affairs, and he chose men of high talents whom he 
knew. 

For war he designated Henry Knox of Massachusetts ; for 
treasury, Alexander Hamilton of New York; for state 
Thomas Jefferson of Virginia; for justice Edmund Randolph 
of Virginia, The country had no better available material. 

The selections for the Supreme Court were not so for- 
tunate, — for Chief Justice, John Jay; for the five associate jus- 
tices, fairly good lawyers. Jay was then forty- four years old; 
he had sat In the Continental Congress, being President In 
1779, had been Chief Justice of New York, minister to Spain, 
signer of the Treaty of Ghent, and secretary of foreign af- 
fairs for the Confederation. He had written five of the 
articles In "The Federalist" and had worked with Hamilton 
in New York State for the ratification of the Constitution, the 



234 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

first vote in the New York State Convention stood 1 1 for, 46 
against, but the FederaHsts finally won, being 32 for to 30 
against. He was ardent yet restrained, discontented, large- 
minded, foresighted, in manners by birth and breeding an 
aristocrat, and in theory a Nationalist. 

An Incident with John Hancock. — Washington 
thought best to proceed early in his administration upon a tour 
to Boston in order to confirm the New Englanders in Federal- 
ism. In Boston, he taught old John Hancock an important: 
social lesson in official etiquette; the Governor of Massa- 
chusetts must call upon the President of the United States, 
whether or not the Governor has gout and more or less ner- 
vous prostration, 

Indian Affairs, — Having trouble with the Creek Indians 
of the South, Washington persuaded twenty-nine chiefs to 
visit him in New York where he gave them wampum and 
tobacco and secured with their tribe a peace on fairly good 
terms. When General St. Clair was ambushed out in Indiana 
by the Six Nations, Washington sent for the sick general 
and in all his anger, — for he had explained Indian fighting to 
the over-confident man, — dealt with him kindly; but sent 
"Mad" Anthony Wayne to recover the lost territory, a wise 
and somewhat successful measure. Despite British intrigues 
in the North and Spanish intrigues in the South, the President 
greatly improved the frontier situations. 

The All-Important Compromise. — Gold is govern- 
ment; and the greatest of all the concerns of Washington was 
getting the treasury into shape for govenmental undertakings. 
Washington was an "assumptionist," and as such favored 
taking 'over the war debts of all the States. Here came the 
first log-rolling. The creditor North got the State debts taken 
over by the National Government at par, making an enormous 
profit contrary to common sense; and the South got the site 
of the National Capital, at a point on the Potomac fifty miles 
northeast of Mount Vernon. Both features in the com- 
promise pleased Washington. The site was perhaps well enough 
in the days when a location on tidewater was important ; but 
its climate always was about the worst in the United States, 
being unendurable from heat and wet in the summer, and 
from dampness in winter. Its location proved to be extremely 
perilous in the War of 181 2 and again in the Interstate War. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 235 

From the far height of more than a hundred years, we know 
now that the Capital should have been in the hill country of 
Maryland or of southeastern Pennsylvania. 

Alexander Hamilton. — In this business of getting credit 
and a revenue, the leader was the youthful Alexander Hamil- 
ton, by far the most important of all the men in Washington's 
administrations. Like Jay, the Secretary of the Treasury was 
of Huguenot descent. Born in 1757, he wrote blazing politi- 
cal pamphlets when but eighteen years of age. He served 
brilliantly in the battles of the Revolution and in 1777 be- 
came Washington's secretary. He led a battalion at York- 
town. He served in Congress in 1782 and '83. At this 
period, he began to practice law and soon became a member of 
the New York Legislature, assisted greatly by his fortunate 
marriage to Eliza Schuyler, daughter of General Philip 
Schuyler of Albany, the real organizer of the resistance to the 
invasion of Burgoyne, whom Howe betrayed. He was a 
member of the Constitutional Convention and wrote most of 
the articles of "The Federalist" in its defence, which appeared 
first in the "New York Gazette." 

"Assumption" was advocated by Hamilton and opposed 
by Jefferson; the former won. Next the New Yorker advo- 
cated a national bank, which Jefferson said would be uncon- 
stitutional; Hamilton won. Soon, we had a national debt 
of $75,000,000, which tended to the security of the central 
government. Hamilton urged a protective tariff in the inter- 
ests of our manufacturers, and Washington supported him in 
his urgency; but Congress gave to the subject no consistent 
attention. To get funds to pay the interest on the debt, Ham- 
ilton urged excise taxation. And here we have the most im- 
portant of all the events of Washington's administrations. 

The Whiskey Rebellion. — Western Pennsylvania like 
Vermont and North Carolina was peopled by the Scotch-Irish, 
so named perhaps because they were neither Scots nor Irish 
but Saxons who came to England in 800 A. D., moved north 
into Scotland in 1200 A. D. and west into north Ireland in 
1650 A. D. and crossed the Atlantic early in the eighteenth 
century. There were in America a quarter of a million of 
these Teutonic adventurers in 1792, mostly in the Appala- 
chians to which they have clung now for two centuries. In 
Western Pennsylvania, by 1 792 they had overridden the Eng- 



^36 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

lish Quakers and the Dutch. They laughed at Hamilton's 
excise laws; and went on making whiskey tax free despite 
Washington's orders. In September, 1793, the President sent 
15,000 soldiers into Western Pennsylvania; and Hamilton 
went with them. The Rebellion vanished into thin air; and 
the nation found itself in secure possession of a large and 
regular income from perhaps its worst vice of the times, — 
excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages. "He touched," 
said Daniel Webster of Hamilton, "the rock of the national 
resource and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth." But 
it was no rock, — simply a whiskey still. It was not a national 
resource but at best a wasteful luxury. The revenue came not 
gushing but squeezed under the feet of marching soldiers ; and 
Washington was sorry not to lead them, sending his friend 
General Lee of Virginia instead. 

The excise tax meant a respectable and a respected govern- 
ment. The Whiskey Rebellion was the crisis of our early 
national history. Jefferson as President might have expostu- 
lated with the moonshiners, and Buchanan have mourned over 
them. Washington went after them as he did after the poacher 
in the old Mount Vernon days : as the later Presidents Jackson, 
Lincoln, Cleveland, and Roosevelt would have done. 

The Foreign Policy. — The same fibre, stamina and force 
went into the conduct of foreign relations. France had helped 
America in the War of Independence and now demanded a 
closer familiarity with the National Government. But Wash- 
ington saw two things with intense clearness. First, ro nation 
ever helps another nation beyond the range of its own interests. 
Individuals may have brotherly kindness even to self-sacrifice. 
LaFayette was such an individual. But monarchical France 
was dead : in her place stood radical, fantastic raging France, 
the terror of the world. Every instinct of Washington was 
against this new France, now seeking to find herself, and to 
establish herself among the nations. The temper of Wash- 
ington was that neither of Burke nor of Mirabeau; but to him 
Robespierre was abhorrent, a human Satan. 

Citizen Genet of France. — In 1792, at the crisis of the 
French Revolution, George Washington was again unani- 
mously elected President of the United States, and the Capital 
was moved from New York to Philadelphia. But already 
Anti-Federalism had become a party, and John Adams was 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 237 

reelected Vice-President over Anti-Federalist George Clinton 
of New York by but 'j'j electoral votes to 50. The President's 
proclamation of neutrality in the war between France and 
England aroused violent objurgations from the French sym- 
pathizers because he was not pro-French and from the Anti- 
Federalists because he assumed the right to issue any procla- 
mation at all. Then came the affair of "Citizen" Genet, which 
tried the patience of Washington almost to the limit. Genet 
represented the French Republic and commissioned privateers- 
men out of Charleston, South Carolina. These captured Brit- 
ish vessels ; and in retaliation British cruisers captured Ameri- 
can merchantmen. 

Cabinet Changes. — In this storm, Thomas Jefferson re- 
signed from the Cabinet, out of hatred of the land that had 
caused the death of his wife and an equal hatred of Hamilton, 
whom he called a "monocrat," meaning thereby one who meant 
to establish one-man power. Edmund Randolph of Virginia 
was then given the portfolio of State. Soon Alexander Ham- 
ilton was out of the Treasury, and Oliver Wolcott of New 
York took his place. The War Department came to Timothy 
Pickering of Massachusetts, who soon went to the State De- 
partment. At the end of his administrations, Washington had 
James McHenry of Maryland in the War Department, and 
Charles Lee of Virginia as Attorney-General, where William 
Bradford of Pennsylvania had been one year following Knox. 
Three different men were the Postmaster Generals, but the 
Department did not have full Cabinet rank. These were 
Samuel Osgood of Massachusetts, Pickering and Joseph 
Habersham of Georgia. Pickering, a very plain man, thus 
saw three different Departments. These many changes showed 
the times. They explain in part why Washington would not 
take a third term. 

Jay's Treaty. — In April, 1 794, Washington sent John Jay 
as envoy to England. There he had a deal of strife. In the 
end after great effort, he managed to get a treaty that might 
easily have been much worse, but was so far from being satis- 
factory to American public sentiment that the land was soon 
aflame with resentment. His treaty secured just three good 
things, — the surrender of the forts upon the Western frontier, 
ten million dollars (ultimately) for damages to merchant 
ships, and open ports in the West Indies to vessels under sev- 



238 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

enty tons. But it failed in all other of the American claims, 
including damages for negroes carried off in 1783. We sur- 
rendered in two important matters, — agreeing to pay debts due 
to Englishmen prior to the War, and also not to take the 
products of the West Indies to Europe for sale. 

The excitement of the country was reflected in the Senate 
where the nominee of the President, John Rutledge, a member 
of the Court and former Chief Justice of South Carolina, to 
succeed John Jay as Chief Justice, who resigned, was rejected. 
In 1796, after a struggle of two years, Washington sent in the 
name of United States ^Senator Oliver Ellsworth of Connecti- 
cut, who was confirmed by his former colleagues. 

The Farewell Address. — In the meantime, Hamilton, 
impoverished by trying to live in official Philadelphia upon 
the always meagre salary of a high public office, and by politi- 
cal expenses and other costs, had left the Cabinet It was a 
serious loss to Washington, and it would have been quite as 
serious for him to have had Hamilton stay longer in his official 
household. As time passed, and as European character un- 
folded itself, the season for electing a President drew near. 
The leading spirits of the country turned to Washington, ask- 
ing him to take a third term. In 1796 he issued his "Farewell 
Address," perhaps the most beautiful yet vigorous communi- 
cation ever written by a public officer in church or in state to 
his constituents. Hamilton probably wrote most of its phrases. 
The ideas were Washington's. In the Address, he gave sage 
counsel, direct warning and noble maxims in the serene tones 
of a good man whose useful life is about to end. In December 
of the same year, he appeared before a joint session of both 
Houses of Congress and spoke briefly. He had come to the 
laying-down, so he felt, of all the burdens of life. 

Threatened War with France. — July, 1798, found 
Washington, at sixty-six years of age, commander-in-chief of 
the American armies in the threatened war with France, with 
Hamilton second in command. But month succeeded month, 
and on December 14, 1799, before hostilities were declared, 
George Washington died suddenly. 

His Death. — The circumstances of his death were these: 
a hard ride on the 12th, rain and snow and a cold of the throat 
on the 13th; bloodletting on the morning of the 14th; and at 
eventide strangulation by oedematous laryngitis for which the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 239 

only known modern cure is tracheotomy and special diet for 
the restoration of the physical strength. In short, three thmgs 
conspired to finish suddenly a no longer hale old man, — hard 
exercise, bad winter weather on Virginia tidewater, and medi- 
cal ignorance. It may be suggested that Washington's habit 
of drinking hot rum before rising in the morning, — a habit 
contracted in the army camp, — had weakened a throat never 
strong at best. 

A resolution in Congress pronounced George Washington 
"first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow- 
citizens," And General Lee in his funeral oration pronounced 
him "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his 
countrymen." The phrases have rung and echoed about the 
world for four generations. 

His Great Private Fortune. — The estate of Washington 
amounted to $800,000 in value, and descended to his widow, 
who survived him three years. The great increase was due 
in part to the coming of settlers upon lands shrewdly chosen 
in the Mohawk valley and in the District of Columbia. In 
part, it was the saved profit of years and years of selling of 
flour and other plantation products in the markets of London, 
for except in the deepest years of the War, Washington was 
a merchant as well as planter. It was the largest estate left 
by any American up to that time. The thousand slaves at 
Mount Vernon, themselves mostly born there, were a consid- 
erable part of this fortune. Inevitably criticism has followed 
the general and statesman beyond the grave. Two other 
patriots,' Robert Morris and Thomas Nelson, died penniless. 
Nor does so vast an accumulation comport with modern views 
of public servants in our highest offices or in any offices. So 
much of land frauds, of money and banking thefts and of army 
corruption has been unearthed regarding these early patriot 
days, so much of the efforts of capitalists to start with woman's 
and child's labor factories and mining enterprises, so much is 
definitely known of the frauds and vices of certain of Wash- 
ington's friends that every lover of heroes instinctively turns 
away from too deep inquiry. Critics have raised the question 
as to why the stepchildren turned out badly, why Martha 
Washington was kept so much in the background, why the 
President condoned at least one admitted large defalcation. 
The answers do not wholly satisfy. The stepchildren had too 



240 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

much money and bad blood and worse associations. Wash- 
ington really was too busy with great affairs to be a good 
husband. And he considered it so necessary to have perfect 
respect on the part of the people for the new government that 
he preferred to hide a crime. 

We are left, even at the worst, with glory enough for one 
man, for even the "father of his country." He was a mighty 
figure striding audaciously and unflinchingly athwart the 
destiny of the greatest empire of the world, ending its hope 
of being another Roman Empire, and himself coming out 
serenely upon the winning side, 

George Washington turned in its course the history of man- 
kind toward greater human liberty. Upon his tremendous 
physical strength and endurance, upon his flawless courage 
and upon his fortunate possession of private property in an 
epoch of change, as upon a fulcrum, pressed by the lever of 
man's will to freedom, the political world was shifted in its 
orbit. Whence came results that would have astonished and 
dismayed himself. 



CHAPTER II 

John Adams 

1797-1801 
1735-1826 

16 States 1800 — Population 5,308,483 

Politics changed by death of Washington — early life— educated at Har- 
vard — Latin teacher — student of theology and of law — married Abigail 
Smith, a remarkable woman — the Stamp Act — defended British sol- 
diers of Boston Massacre — member of Massachusetts General Court — 
member of Continental Congress — floor leader — Chief Justice of 
Massachusetts — peace commissioner — other diplomatic services — ^Vice- 
President of the United States — heir-apparent and strong supporter 
of Washington — President — opposed both France and England — un- 
popularity of Hamilton — the French troubles — spoke in person in 
Congress — X. Y. Z. letters — war afoot and Federalists split — Alien 
and Sedition Acts — Adams Galilean rather Anglican — Hamilton caused 



JOHN ADx\MS 241 

defeat of Adams for reelection and let Jefferson in — appointed 
John Marshall Chief Justice of Supreme Court — a very bitter old 
age — envious even of Washington's fame — wholly right in opposition 
to Hamilton — an able man though defeated. 

Politics Changed by Death of Washington. — The 
sudden death of George Washington changed the face of 
American poHtics. The mentor of pubHc men was gone. 
John Adams, but three years his junior, was destined to sur- 
vive him twenty-seven years; and Thomas Jefferson, eleven 
years his junior, also twenty-seven years. Alexander Ham- 
ilton, most trusted of Washington's subordinates, was to last 
but four years after his chief. What might have been, these 
facts suggest : Had Adams died and Washington lived ! Had 
Jefferson died and Hamilton lived ! After all, had not Wash- 
ington really worked hardest? 

John Adams was the choice of Washington as his successor, 
rather than Hamilton, in much the same way and for much 
the same reason, as in 1908 Roosevelt preferred Taft to Elihu 
Root. Hamilton was not available, being personally unpopu- 
lar. John Adams, however, was not elected unanimously. In 
this period, the State Legislatures chose the electors, and in 
1796 the verdict of the electoral college was seventy-one votes 
for Adams to sixty-eight for Thomas Jefferson, Such a 
political situation is certainly food for reflection. How dif- 
ferent would the history of the country have been, had the 
three majority been for Jefferson in 1797! It was before the 
time of party conventions. In Congressional elections and 
on the floor of Congress, Federalism and Anti-Federalism 
fought out the question of Presidential nominations. By so 
narrow a margin, Washington was spared seeing his keenest 
critic become President. 

Early Life. — John Adams was born October 30, 1735, at 
Braintree, Massachusetts, not in that part of the town which 
afterwards became Quincy. As a boy, he was a near neighbor 
of John Hancock and but a year older. His great-grandfather 
was also grandfather of Sam Adams, "the famous Adams," 
with whom this younger second cousin was often confused 
both in America and in Europe. Though the father of John 
Adams was but a poor farmer, not a well-to-do maltster like 
the father of Samuel Adams, he contrived to send his son to 



242 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Harvard, where he was graduated as bachelor of arts at the 
age of nineteen, being in the class next after that of John 
Hancock. Despite great unlikeness in fortune and equally- 
great unlikeness in character, these three were closely asso- 
ciated from early manhood until death. 

Educated at Harvard. — ^Upon graduation, young, stocky, 
industrious John Adams went forty miles west of Worcester 
and set up as a "grammar school" teacher, — that is, as a 
teacher of Latin and Greek. Like so many other men before 
and since, he looked upon teaching as a stepping-stone, and 
out of school hours and on holidays and vacation, for more 
than two years, studied law diligently. Here was no Patrick 
Henry to crowd into law upon six weeks' cramming and with 
no substantial foundation of academic study. On the con- 
trary, John Adams studied not only law but also theology and 
only two things determined him in choosing the bar rather 
than the church as a career, — the first, his convinced opposition 
to the orthodoxy of the times, and the second, thrift, for he 
saw no pecuniary gains in what was to him the more fasci- 
nating field. Adams would have been glad to be the minister 
of a church in those days of ministerial primacy. He would 
have been glad to be a theological scholar in those days of 
closet-study. But the pay was poor, and the gateway strictly 
barred against heresies. Adams came to the bar in 1758, cele- 
brating his admission in Boston by a fine dinner to his elders, 
and then going home to practice at Braintree. Like Patrick 
Henry, he quickly gained a large practice in small cases. Three 
years later, he heard James Otis in that magnificent declara- 
tion over the writs of assistance, "Taxation without represen- 
tation is tyranny." 

Marriage. — In 1764, being twenty-eight years of age, and 
contrary to the advice of the Nestor of the Boston bar, — his 
friend Jonathan Sewall, — John Adams took to himself a wife, 
by name Abigail Smith, a lady of nineteen years of the already 
famous Quincy family and a minister's daughter, like Elizabeth 
Checkley, first wife of his cousin Sam Adams. It was to be 
no ordinary marriage. 

We read but little of the wife of that marvellous orator, 
Patrick Henry, other than that she was the devoted mother of 
his six children and his admiring, worshipful consort. The 
second wife of Sam Adams and the common law wife of 



JOHN ADAMS 243 

Franklin did not greatly influence their careers. The case of 
Martha Washington was different. She gave to her husband 
the largest of the three fortunes that made his great career 
financially easy; she did more, she managed his estates and 
his household and his social affairs with a skill and success 
that notably contributed to his own immense services to his 
nation and thereby to mankind. She was his seconder every- 
where save on the field of battle. The fact that her second 
marriage was childless, much as both lamented it, gave to Mrs. 
Washington the more time and energy to help her husband in 
domestic and social affairs. She never concerned herself in 
politics. Without her, George Washington might still have 
been an important man; but he would have been far less 
successful. 

His Wife a Remarkable Woman. — But the case of 
Abigail Smith, wife of John Adams, is different. She was the 
mother of John Quincy Adams and of four other children. 
She lived until 181 8 to die of typhus fever. And she had little 
property of her own. What she was, however, in herself as 
intellect and character greatly concerns American history. She 
belongs to that select and glorious company of wives who have 
inspired their husbands to great enterprises, — such a wife as 
James Russell Lowell had in Maria White, Abraham Lincoln 
in Mary Todd for all her eccentricities (doubtless exaggerated 
by report) and Grover Cleveland (who deserved less well) in 
Frances Folsom. 

From the days of the courtship to those of her last illness, 
Abigail Smith kept teaching John Adams many things; and 
was his confidant in all matters, public and private, often 
beyond discretion. She turned a bristling, money-getting, 
eager, narrow "business man's lawyer" first into a patriot and 
then into a statesman, ranking at least in the first half-dozen 
of the second half of the eighteenth century. And it was both 
fight and work to achieve this end, for the original instincts 
of John Adams were mere activity, pride in personal success, 
property-acquirement, fame and power. His faults were many, 
— ^vanity, short-sightedness, uncharitableness, parsimony, im- 
petuosity, pugnacity. The correspondence of John and Abigail 
Adams is a veritable mine of information with many ores, — 
among them wifely counsel, large-mindedness, patience, and 



244 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

other good qualities, John Adams had married above his 
class. 

The Stamp Act. — The first important public appearance 
of Adams was in 1765 when he persuaded his town to adopt 
resolutions against the Stamp Act. At this same period, John 
Hancock employed him and paid him handsomely in that 
famous matter of the sloop "Liberty," — ominous name to 
alleged tyrants! He had now become important enough for 
Hutchinson and the Tories to try to bribe him by an offer of 
the post of advocate-general. But Mrs. Abigail would have 
none of it. In 1770, having removed to Boston, he defended 
the British soldiers who had taken part in the Boston Mas- 
sacre; and seconded the acquittal of all but two who, taking 
"benefit of clergy," escaped with branding upon the hand. This 
action, entirely professional, incurred the displeasure of the 
Liberals ; and brought him the paltry fee of nineteen guineas 
and no word of thanks from the soldiers. In the same year, 
through the political maneuvers of that astute cousin of his, 
Sam Adams, master of Boston town-meeting, John Adams be- 
came, however, a member of the Massachusetts General 
Court. 

Until 1774, he is primarily the lawyer and manages to 
accumulate through his litigious neighbors' quarrels a compe- 
tence, no more. By the same age, Benjamin Franklin had 
acquired wealth and Patrick Henry a comfortable property. 
Samuel Adams had become poor. These are essential facts in 
the resultant situation, Franklin was in a position to live 
abroad as a diplomat, Henry grew isolated and independent, 
Sam Adams had to keep in the background, and John Adams 
for all his self-assertiveness must defer to the rich men in 
Congress, — to Hancock, Dickinson, Mifflin, Lee, Livingston, 
the Morrises, and Washington. The Adamses were compara- 
tively poor men. Most of the members of the Continental 
Congress were rich or at least well-to-do. 

In the Continental Congress. — ^The great years of John 
Adams were 1774, 1775, 1776, and 1777. ^^ ^^^ ^''^^ Con- 
gress, he was dined and wined beyond good sense by the Phila- 
delphians ; and he kept back in his soul his pressing desire to 
act. In order to hold the South, Massachusetts must defer to 
Virginia. In the second Congress, Sam and John worked to- 



JOHN ADAMS 245 

gether, — Sam quietly in conversations and John openly in 
speeches, — to make George Washington commander-in-chief 
and thereby to adopt the New England army as the affair of 
Congress. The battle of Bunker Hill, though a defeat, helped 
their plan, and the Virginia Colonel was set over Yankee 
troops. Next year, the Adamses worked for the Declaration. 
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia was their ablest coadjutor. To 
which of the four, — Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, John 
Adams, and Lee, — belongs most of the credit of the Declara- 
tion affords opportunity for argument. The first man wrote 
it; Sam Adams persuaded Congress to have the committee 
appointed and directed to write it ; John made by far the most 
eloquent speech in favor of it; and Lee moved the original 
resolution for independence. There is glory enough for all of 
them ; glory enough for the entire fifty-seven men who signed 
it unanimously. 

In 1774 John Adams had written to his friend Sewall, — 
"Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish with my country, 
is my unalterable determination." And now, July 2, 1776, 
he was in as great peril as General Washington himself. They 
were all to live or to die together. Conciliation was a dead 
issue. 

Peace Commissioner. — In 1777, after two strenuous years 
in which he had served on ninety committees of a Congress 
weltering in folly and been chief justice of Massachusetts, 
Adams was sent as a commissioner of peace and commerce to 
France, with the especial business of trying to end the war 
with Great Britain. Through vast troubles and petty squabbles, 
for more than ten years, he remained abroad in one capacity 
and another as American representative. He had to learn 
slowly and painfully what Washington had divined at once, — 
that official France was using America as an instrument for 
the ruin of England. With John Adams, American "shirt- 
sleeves" diplomacy began ; and as against Count de Vergennes, 
French minister, it began ill. Adams wished to end the war. 
Both England and France sought, for complementary reasons, 
to prolong it ; England hoping against hope to wear down the 
colonies, as she still called them, until France tired of helping 
them, France hoping with great hope to keep the war alive for 
the wearing down of England and caring nothing for the 
Patriots beyond their still keeping the field. 



246 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Other Diplomatic Services. — For all his errors, of which 
the worst was his almost total inability to understand the use- 
fulness of Franklin and his consequent discourtesy to that 
wisest of men, John Adams rendered several signal services 
to America. He negotiated the treaty with Holland in 1781 
and secured loans. He negotiated the treaty of peace in 1 782 
and 1783 and deserves the credit of saving the fishing-rights 
in Newfoundland. Returning home with fame, he was elected 
Vice-President. This first Congress with him as President of 
the Senate upon twenty tie votes supported the policies of 
President Washington. He spoke upon the floor freely as 
Senator-at-large. It was "as heir apparent," so he wrote to 
his wife, in 1796, that he succeeded Washington as President. 
Upon the Federalism of John Adams, the destiny of the nation 
turned. 

Vice-President. — The story of his eight years as Vice- 
President is not dull, but much of it is disagreeable. He was 
in controversy both with Hamilton and with Jefferson not 
because he took middle ground between centralization and 
localization of governmental functions but mainly because he 
took ground against both France and England, accepting liter- 
ally and vigorously the warning of Washington against en- 
tangling foreign alliances. His vigorous hostility to France 
was due not only to the change of its government to the 
Directory and later to the Consulship of Napoleon but also to 
his thorough understanding that — strange though it sounds — 
America might and did owe gratitude to such individuals as 
LaFayette and Rochambeau and D'Estaing and the soldiers 
and sailors who risked and in many instances lost their lives 
in her patriot cause, and yet did not owe much gratitude to 
the French nation or people. His equally vigorous hostility 
to England was due partly to a grudge against her for insolent 
treatment of himself as commissioner of peace and later as 
accredited minister at her Court but mainly to his knowledge 
that by economic measures she was trying to ruin the sea trade 
of her former colonies. 

Reputed an Unsuccessful President. — The administra- 
tion of President Adams is commonly accounted unsuccessful ; 
and various explanations are set forth. One explanation is 
that Hamilton, who was the real leader of the Federalist party 
was hostile to him. Hamilton himself could not be elected 



JOHN ADAMS 247 

President. He had been born and reared in his youth in the 
West Indies, and he never acquired sufficiently popular man- 
ners to overcome the consequent prejudice. Even in 1797 he 
was but forty years old, and to this day no man but forty years 
old ever has made enough friends to win the Presidency. 
Hamilton was popularly considered a New York city man, a 
local man till his death, a corrupt representative of narrow 
commercial interests, for all the fact that his statesmanship was 
on a larger order than that of any other man save Jefferson 
and Adams only. 

Another explanation, — not too lightly to be cast aside, — is 
that Adams had lived abroad for the last ten years and in con- 
sequence had lost sight of the domestic situation and failed to 
understand the now rising politicians and political questions. 
Still another is that he had grown censorious, arrogant, ego- 
tistic, and opinionated, which, despite his wife's counsel, was 
measureably the case. Moreover, though naturally equal and 
levelling in his conduct and social notions, he had learned 
abroad how strong is the vulgar respect for uniforms and 
ceremonials; and he had become overbearing not only out- 
wardly but also in spirit. Perhaps the influence of Washing- 
ton in this respect had been unfavorable. 

A fourth explanation is that in fact he was always essentially 
right and that the verdict of history will approve nearly every- 
thing that he did and nearly everything that he advocated 
doing. It was indeed a sorely troublous time, as the history 
of his administration shows. Perhaps, Washington in a third 
term might have done better; yet few other Presidents have 
done as well in their great difficulties. 

A fifth explanation is illness in his family that kept him 
home at Quincy; and the mails were slow. 

Let us see what one of the great difficulties was. 

Rich Gouverneur Morris of Revolutionary fame and of bril- 
liant memory to this day as French minister had opposed the 
Revolutionary movement in France so strongly that the Direc- 
tory forced his recall. Then poor James Monroe was sent, 
and he became so Jacobinical that in self-defence the adminis- 
tration recalled him. Then magnificent General C. C. Pinck- 
ney was sent, — a former aide-de-camp of Washington and di 
signer of the Constitution. France would have none of him: 
he had been educated in Oxford, England, though a South 



248 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Carolinian by birth. Adams wished to send clever Thomas 
Jefferson who would be acceptable, but he had just been elected 
Vice-President, Pinckney receiving the third number of votes, 
according to the system of the time in the Electoral College 
whereby the electors each voted for two men, the first and 
second becoming President and Vice-President respectively. 
The judicious Madison declined the mission. And now because 
Jefferson could not go, the Directory chose to assume that the 
hated Adams would not send him; and launched a new com- 
mercial measure to teach America a lesson. 

Appears Before Congress. — ^On May 15, 1797, President 
Adams convened Congress in special session, himself making 
a speech in person. He advocated a strong navy; he was the 
man who had put George Washington in possession first of an 
army and next of a navy in the War of Independence. This 
proposition was laughed at. But at last, in early September, 
two envoys were dispatched, — John Marshall who now comes 
forward for the first time prominently and that Elbridge Gerry 
who was one of the three members of the Constitutional Con- 
vention to withdraw at the end and to oppose its ratification 
by their States. They joined Pinckney in France. The French 
minister Talleyrand demanded large bribes for himself and 
various of the Directory before he would formally recognize 
their mission. In January, upon the refusal of this infamous,, 
though perhaps not unusual, proposal, another decree was 
launched against American shipping and trade. Marshall took 
his passports. Pinckney withdrew from Paris. Gerry, the 
Anti-Federalist, alone remained. 

The X. Y. Z. Letters.— Then through the W. X. Y. Z. 
letters came the exposure in Congress of the attempt to compel 
the payment of bribes ; and the country boiled over in wrath. 
"Hail Columbia" was sung in the streets of the towns and 
cities. Gerry was recalled. It was a dreadful time for Vice- 
President Jefferson, a partisan pro-Gallican. Congress passed 
and the President signed the Alien Act. This authorized the 
President to banish foreigners who were making trouble ; but 
none were ever banished. Congress passed also the Sedition 
Act, which directed the fining and imprisonment of publishers 
of false and malicious charges against the President or other 
officers of government, or against government itself. Several 
offenders were fined, and one was imprisoned. Jefferson led 



JOHN ADAMS 249 

Kentucky to answer with resolutions which in a modified form 
were passed also by the Virginia Legislature with the support 
of Madison. These announced the doctrine that the States 
might annul Acts of Congress.^ 

War Afoot and Federalists Split. — To the actions of 
France the American Government replied by making George 
Washington commander-in-chief of the army; and prepara- 
tions for war on land and on sea went on actively. Several 
French ships were actually captured. Here arose the final 
Hamilton-Adams cause of feud. Washington desired Hamil- 
ton for second in command. Adams did not, but in time 
yielded, — and Hamilton never forgave him. This quarrel now 
completely split the Federalist Party; and thereby helped Jef- 
ferson who was getting on with his new Democratic Republi- 
can Party. A fierce storm raged for months over a new em- 
bassy to France. At last three commissioners were dispatched 
in November, 1799, by which time Talleyrand was out of 
office. Adams had saved the country from actually declaring 
war against France, and in so doing had enraged the political 
leader of the Federalist party, Alexander Hamilton. National 
patriotism and sound humanity had been political suicide for 
the President. In 181 5 he wrote: "I desire no other inscrip- 
tion over my grave than this : 'Here lies John Adams, who 
took upon himself the responsibility of the peace with France 
in the year 1800.' " 

Cabinet Changes. — For his Cabinet, John Adams in 1797 
had taken all of the Secretaries of Washington. His notion 
was that the Cabinet should be a relatively permanent body. 
Its membership, however, for his administration was as fol- 
lows, viz. : 

State, — Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts (three years), 
John Marshall of Virginia. 

Treasury. — Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut (brief term), 
Samuel Dexter of Massachusetts (nearly four years). 

War, — James McHenry of Maryland (brief term), John 
Marshall (three years), Samuel Dexter (iDrief term), Roger 
Griswold of Connecticut (brief term). 

Attorney-General, — Charles Lee of Virginia (nearly four 
years), Theophilus Parsons of Massachusetts (brief term). 

Postmaster-General, — ^Joseph Habersham of Pennsylvania. 

The flurry of the proposed war with France is shown in the 

^See p. 284, infra. 



250 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS, 

changes in the War Department; and that of the Alien and 
Sedition Acts in the office of the Attorney-General. 

Hamilton Breaks Adams. — During his administration, 
because of illness in his family, Adams was repeatedly away 
from Washington, one year for seven months continuously. 
The Secretaries did about as they pleased. In a way, it is true 
that the climate of the lower Potomac valley was responsible 
for his ruin since it was intolerable to his family. Perhaps, 
the new White House had something to do with this. There 
was no adequate drainage in that morass in 1797 or for long 
years thereafter. 

But the outcome of all his Cabinet and Congressional 
troubles was that Adams had to force some of his chief ad- 
visers (and should have forced others) to resign. He sus- 
pected their loyalty to himself, a suspicion that we now know 
was fully warranted. They served Adams but obeyed Hamil- 
ton. So furious was the real Federalist leader against Adams 
that he intended to force Washington to come back for a third 
term ; but the broken chieftain suddenly died. Hamilton wrote 
a scathing diatribe against Adams, to be circulated confiden- 
tially among the party leaders. But Aaron Burr got a copy 
and printed it, sending it broadcast. This ended Federalism 
in the executive branch. 

In the Electoral College in February, 1801, the votes stood, 
JeflFerson ']2>^ Burr 73, Adams 65, Pinckney 75. 

The hatred of Hamilton had carried too far. Those who 
desire to measure him accurately should add this item to such 
other facts as, for example, that while enriching the capitalist- 
speculators by assuming the State debts, by his advice and 
influence the new government repudiated the $100,000,000 of 
paper currency omitted as a forced loan during the days of 
the War and of the Confederation, thereby robbing every poor 
man in the land. Multiplying many fold the wealth of capi- 
talists and finally wiping out the assets of the poor may have 
been good finance; but at this distance, it does not seem in 
accord with justice. 

John Marshall, Federalist, Becomes Chief Justice of 
THE Supreme Court. — The last important single official act 
of President John Adams was to name his Secretary of State; 
John Marshall, as head of the Supreme Court. This skilful 



JOHN ADAMS 251 

reasoner and determined centralizationist, this supporter of 
land-getters and of capitalists, was to make Federalism part 
and parcel of the practice of the National Government and to 
convert the Supreme Court into a Constitutional Convention 
with absolute and final power. 

So bitter was the feeling of Adams against Jefferson that 
he left Washington the morning of inauguration day. He 
felt "disgraced," so he said. The world was all wrong. He 
had deserved a second term. 

In Unhappy Old Age. — With this scene, John Adams 
practically dropped out of public life. He spent his many 
remaining years at the home that he had purchased in early 
manhood in Quincy. He lived to see his brilliant son, John 
Quincy Adams, elected sixth President of the United States. 
In his early life, he had been valetudinarian in health, and in 
his old age, he was fretful and despondent. In 1814, he wrote 
to Rufus King, "Can there be any deeper damnation in this 
universe than to be condemned to a long life in danger, toil and 
anxiety : to be rewarded with abuse, insult and slander ; and to 
die at seventy, leaving to an amiable wife and to five 
amiable children nothing for inheritance but the contempt, 
hatred and malice of the world? How much prettier a thing 
it is to be a disinterested patriot like Washington and Franklin, 
live and die among the hosannas of the multitude, and leave 
half a million to one child or to no child!" 

On the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, July 4, 1826, John Adams, being ninety years old, died. 
His last words were : "Thomas Jefferson still survives." A 
few hours earlier, at Monticello, in Virginia, the man who 
wrote the Declaration and who defeated him for the second 
term as President, also died. It is a coincidence that all his- 
tory reports with a strange sense of nearness of the Power 
who manages us all. 

Patriotic and Able Though Often Mistaken and En- 
vious. — ^But for one serious fault, John Adams would be 
known as a great though considerably mistaken statesman. 
He could not divine the motives of men. He was no politi- 
cian. The great statesman is always something of a politi- 
cian. 

It is well to note here that, after the War, Washington 



252 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

would have been the first citizen of the land whether Presi- 
dent or not. How great the handicap of Adams was for 
Washington to survive until the time of settling the question 
of the nomination for second term, the President understood 
better than any of his contemporaries. Hamilton, who de- 
generated miserably in his later days, being found out for 
what he really was, used the prestige of Washington to help 
effect the political ruin of Adams. Of all the serious disad- 
vantages of the American short-term Presidency, this is the 
most unfortunate, — that greater or supposedly greater pre- 
decessors' have willingly or unwillingly contributed to the 
undoing of the men actually in office. In the case of George 
Washington, it was Adams alone who was at fault from 
jealousy, for he had an absolutely loyal friend in the retired 
hero. Probably John Adams was right. The mischief-maker 
was Alexander Hamilton, whom Adams so long outlived yet 
never could forgive. He did forgive Thomas Jefferson and 
died at amity with him. But it is so much harder to for- 
give an enemy in one's own household. Between them, 
Adams and Hamilton ruined the Federalist Party. 



CHAPTER III 
Thomas Jefferson 

1801-1809 
1743-1826 

16-17 States Population 6,000,000 

Admitted: Ohio. 

Four orders of mankind — early life — educated at William and Mary — 
marriage — wealth — Dabney Carr — Monticello and the Italian garden — 
the real nature of the struggle between England and America — the 
colonial position — member House of Burgesses — "A Summary View" 
published — member Second Continental Congress — "Declaration of 
Independence" — member Virginia Assembly — the Virginia social revo- 
lution — recorded in statutes — church and state separated — primogeni- 
ture abolished — Governor of State — army of CornwalHs raids his 
property — a note regarding Thomas Nelson, a patriot — Dr. Benedict 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 253 

Arnold raids Virginia — Jefferson impeached for incapacity — wife died 
— ^"Notes on Virginia" — scandals — Annapolis Convention — member of 
Congress — decimal money — Virginia gives to nation the Northwest 
Territory — visits Boston — proceeds to France as diplomat — sends 
sculptor to make bust of Washington — the French Revolution — con- 
vent experience of his daughters — Secretary of State — ^bargain with 
Hamilton — National Bank — Genet — argument against alliance with 
France — retires to Monticello — as farmer and scientist — debts — Vice- 
President — a letter-writer, not a speaker — elected President by one 
vote, brought to him by the Sedition Act — Aaron Burr, Vice-Presi- 
dent — his Cabinet — government policies — an economist, decentraliza- 
tionist, peace-at-any-price man — the Louisiana Purchase — destroyed 
Barbary pirates — Lewis and Clarke — reelected under changed statutes 
— George Clinton, Vice-President — the Embargo Acts — Burr killed 
Hamilton, both bad men — alleged "treason" of Burr in the Mississippi 
Valley — acquitted — President foiled Supreme Court — house at Monti- 
cello — founded University of Virginia — sold his library to Congress — 
most popular man in all American history — faults — compared with 
Washington — amiable, brilliant — teacher of Americanism — first com- 
plete democrat. 

Birthplace. — The third President of the United States 
was born April 13, 1743, at Shadwell, Virginia. The Univer- 
sity of Virginia at Charlottesville is but a few miles distant. 
Shadwell included in its limits what is now Monticello. The 
heart of Thomas Jefferson always centered at this spot. 

Four Orders of Mankind. — Mankind may be classified 
in four orders, — lords, mechanics, helots and poets. The 
lords rule, the mechanics construct, the helots serve, the 
poets create. Thomas Jefferson was a poet; in this sense, 
that with high imagination, he saw visions and dreamed 
dreams. It is a rude and arbitrary classification, — few men 
belong wholly to any one of these orders. Washington was 
the lord, and Adams the mechanic. The pity of it is that we 
have had some Presidents virtually but helots. 

It was this high imagination of Jefferson that has given to 
him his splendid rank not only In America but everywhere. 
It also gave to him nearly all of his errors and failings, sev- 
eral of which were Indeed serious. Though In action inferior 
to Washington, history ranks Jefferson above both earlier 
Presidents, not Indeed for definite services rendered but for 
the brilliant exposition of a political and social philosophy that 



254 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

has had a profound influence upon men and nations and for 
the organization of a party to profess and to maintain it. 

History judges men mainly by the quahty of their best 
achievements, partly by the quantity of their achievement, 
and very little by their personal virtues and sins except in so 
far as their virtues and sins affected the total of their per- 
formance. 

Educated at William and Mary. — In the early lives of 
some great men, there have been situations by no means 
normal. Ben Franklin virtually ran away from home and 
took to adventures in towns here and abroad. George Wash- 
ington lost his father early and went to live away from home. 
While still but a lad, he was brought into personal relations 
with great men and set to great undertakings. Like Wash- 
ington, Thomas Jefferson lost his father when but fourteen 
years old. At seventeen, he went to the college of William and 
Mary at Williamsburg and remained there seven years, asso- 
ciating in familiar scholarly and social relations with its lead- 
ing citizens, the governor of the colony, the professor of 
mathematics and philosophy in the college and George Wythe, 
destined to become the foremost jurist of America, with whom 
later shrewd John Marshall read law and brilliant Henry Clay 
served as secretary. 

In physique, Jefferson was slightly taller even than Wash- 
ington, being six feet two and a half inches in height. But 
otherwise, physically, he was inferior to Washington. He 
had reddish hair, hazel eyes, and a slender body. His mother 
was a Randolph. As the eldest son, both from his father and 
from his mother he inherited fair estates, lifting him above the 
financial struggle of poor Patrick Henry. Though his wealth 
was far less than Washington's, yet in social position Jef- 
ferson was rather his superior because of the Randolph blood 
and characteristic intellectual distinction. 

His early law practice was large and profitable beyond that 
of Patrick Henry in his own colony, or that of John Adams in 
Massachusetts. Yet he had no gifts of elocution or public 
address ; and won and held his clients as an office consulting 
lawyer and business expert. 

Marriage. — On New Year's Day, January, i J']2, at twenty- 
eight years of age, Jefferson took to wife a childless widow of 
twenty-four years, Martha (Wayles) Skelton. Scarcely a year 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 255 

later her father died, and Jefferson, who already owned two 
thousand acres of land and fifty slaves, found himself in pos- 
session of forty thousand more acres and a hundred and 
twenty-five slaves, and a debt of nineteen thousand dollars 
due in gold in England. He had become what John Adams 
called "a baron of the South." Not being a business man like 
Washington, he carried the debt instead of selling enough 
land to pay it ; and the debt carried him into financial misery in 
his old age. 

Dabney Carr. — His own sister Martha married his yet 
more brilliant neighbor and friend Dabney Carr; and life 
opened up all its blessings to him. His wife was a beautiful 
woman, blonde, cheerful, a good singer. Children came to 
make the home complete. The Jefferson lands included a fine 
round hill, — in a way, a mountain, — and there Jefferson, buoy- 
ant, artistic, constructive, hospitable, began at once to build 
the house and to clear and fashion in landscape style the 
estate that he called Monticello. The Jefferson lands in- 
cluded also the Natural Bridge of rock with a river running 
through its archway; up that rock the lad Washington, wan- 
dering a hundred miles from home, had clambered to carve his 
immortal name in its enduring stone. 

At Monticello. — Dabney Carr set afoot the intercolonial 
committees of correspondence that foreran the Continental 
Congress. Carr was a bright and shining light in these days. 
And when, being not quite thirty years of age, he died sud- 
denly, Jefferson must face his second sorrow, — the first being 
the death of his own father. The brothers-in-law had been the 
closest of companions ; and this death made great changes in 
the situation of Jefferson. He took the widow Carr and his 
nieces and nephews into his own home to stay as members of 
the family. He now had a great domestic establishment upon 
his hands, — there were thirty- four whites and eighty-three 
blacks upon the home estate. Jefferson had an Italian gar- 
dener and a French cook. He set out trees, experimented 
in grains and berries, knew the name of every horse, cow, pig 
upon his farms, and put up building after building. He rode 
and walked for exercise and read for amusement and for in- 
struction. Often of an afternoon or evening, he played upon 
the violin while his wife played the spinet. 



256 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

The Nature of the Struggle Between England and 
America. — "Is he discontented and set on reform?" The 
cynic asks next, "Is he ill ?" and next, "Has he made a failure 
of his private business ?" And last, "Is he unhappy at home?" 
Thomas Jefferson was set on reform and discontented; but 
he was in superb health and his private business was flourish- 
ing, both his law practice and his planting. His home-life 
was ideal. The reason why he was discontented and set upon 
reform was because certain matters needed reforming, and 
he was great enough to see the discrepancies between existing 
facts and eternal right and justice and strong enough to dare 
to try to correct the evils in which he and his neighbors and 
all Americans were apparently becoming trapped and snared 
and enmeshed. 

Our Colonial Position. — The British Empire belonged 
to the Crown and was governed in every part by a Parlia- 
ment of two Houses, one consisting of hereditary lords and the 
other of elected commoners, all residents of the British Isles. 
It was but human nature that the King and Parliament should 
think of the immediate welfare first, and perhaps almost 
solely, of themselves and of the British Isles. The Islanders 
were superior, the colonials inferior. And it was but human 
nature that the colonials should resent both the airs of su- 
periority and the actions designed to enforce the assumed 
superiority. A discussion of details, — the suppression of 
colonial manufactures, the repression of colonial trade and 
commerce, the taxes, the bureaucracy of haughty rulers, the 
isolation through six weeks' average distance across the ocean, 
— is outside of the scope of this work. 

Parliament could not successfully rule America. At first, 
the hope was that Parliament would cease to try to rule 
America and would allow the colonial legislatures to rule the 
several colonies, but that America would remain under the 
protection of the British Crown and, of course, ready in war 
to defend the interests of the Crown. As this hope died out, 
some preferred to endure the known evils and became ardent 
Loyalists, while others began to dream of and to work for 
independence as a nation. Of all these latter, Sam Adams 
of Massachusetts was foremost to act. Not much behind him 
in time and not at all In energy were Patrick Henry, Dabney 
Carr, and Thomas Jefferson. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 257 

Member Virginia House of Burgesses. — In 1769, Jef- 
ferson became a member of the dignified Virginia House of 
Burgesses. In 1774 he drew up, for the enHghtenment and 
guidance of the Virginia Convention to choose delegates to 
the proposed Continental Congress, one of his most famous 
papers "A Summary View of the Rights of British America." 
Edmund Burke in England, perhaps the greatest, certainly 
the most profound, of her statesmen, revised it and pushed it 
to a wide circulation in England. In 1775, Jefferson became 
a member of the Second Continental Congress and served 
with success and favor upon important committees. He 
drafted several of those eloquent papers which were sent per- 
severingly to the King in the desire to persuade him to a 
wiser and a gentler course. 

Writes the Declaration of Independence. — In 1776, 
Jefferson was chairman of the committee to write the Declara- 
tion, — the other members being Franklin, John Adams, Sher- 
man of Connecticut and R. R. Livingston of New York. His 
literary skill, his zeal, eloquence, perfect mastery of all the 
facts, and unquestionable patriotism led the other members 
to ask him to write the draft. His colleagues of the com- 
mittee changed it slightly, Congress changed it considerably, 
John Adams argued for it brilliantly, and Sam Adams steered 
it through. On July 4th Congress passed it, and Hancock as 
President and Charles Thomson as Secretary signed it. On 
August 2, the officers and most of the others signed a new 
copy engrossed on parchment. The last signature, — that of 
a new member of Congress, Thornton of New Hampshire, — 
was attached in November. It is only in a technical sense that 
it was signed unanimously. Several delegates left Congress 
rather than sign it; but their colonies immediately replaced 
these men with enthusiastic patriots, who did sign it. The 
Declaration is neither the wisest nor the ablest of the produc- 
tions of Thomas Jefferson; but it drove home at once to the 
mark, and had at once and has to this day a wonderful influ- 
ence upon the hearts of men. 

Like much of the philosophy of Jefferson, it overshot the 
mark by overstatement; but mankind has always admired 
hyperbole that emphasizes truth. It may be stretching truth 
to say that "all men are created equal," and that they have 
"certain unalienable rights," to "life, liberty and the pursuit 



258 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

of happiness." The Pennsylvanians had put it more ex- 
pHcitly, affirming that all men have the right to own property 
and to work for adequate wages, Jefferson cut out the 
Quaker certitudes and put in his own poetry, but the essential 
truth is in his fine phrases. Eloquence that moves men does 
not specify, or hedge, or limit its terms. 

The Virginia Political and Social Revolution. — 
Jefferson, under a rule against reelections, soon left Congress 
to serve for two and a half years in the State Assembly; he 
himself considered this position pleasanter and more honor- 
able. The Assembly then proceeded to abolish entail of real 
estate and to release lands thereby, to abolish primogeniture 
and to make all children equal heirs, to set aside the establish- 
ment of the Church, and to create a complete free common 
elementary and collegiate educational system. This was every 
whit the work of a true statesman and wise humanitarian; it 
redeemed Virginia from a fixed aristocracy and an equally 
fixed theocracy. 

Governor of Virginia. — In 1779, Jefferson succeeded 
Patrick Henry as Governor of the State. It was for Vir- 
ginia the gloomiest period of the Revolution. 

In January, 1781, while Jefferson was still Governor, the 
person of whom George Washington wrote these terrible 
words, "So hackneyed in villainy and so lost to all sense of 
honor and shame that while his faculties will enable him to 
continue his sordid pursuits, there will be no time for re- 
morse. . . . He wants feeling," the traitor Benedict 
Arnold invaded Virginia from the seacoast. In June, came 
the Cornwallis raid under Tarleton from North Carolina. 
And Jefferson was impeached for incapacity. 

In April, he lost a daughter, the third of his children to 
die. He resigned and went home to his family and friends. 

Two days after his resignation, a detachment of raiders 
from the army of Cornwallis destroyed much of his property, 
cut the throats of his thoroughbred colts, and carried away 
rnany of his slaves, to die in British prison ships. Mrs. Jef- 
ferson and himself barely escaped capture. Their escape 
saved King George from answering an ugly question, — for 
the author of the Declaration was now as hateful to him as 
Sam Adams. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 259 

The Terrible Cost to Jefferson. — At Yorktown, Corn- 
wallis occupied as headquarters the finest of its mansions — 
that of Thomas Nelson who had succeeded Jefferson as Gov- 
ernor. The American artillery destroyed it. 

By getting himself elected a member of the Virginia As- 
sembly, Jefferson defeated the impeachment charges against 
himself as former governor, wherein he was fortunate. 
Nelson ended a bankrupt. 

But the strain of life was proving top hard for Mrs. Jef- 
ferson, who broke down completely. In September, 1782, 
at forty-three years of age, she died, with but three of her 
six children surviving. The death-rate tells volumes of the 
turmoil and anxiety of the times, for Mrs. Jefferson was by 
nature a vigorous woman. 

"Notes on Virginia.'"' — In the dark years of his impeach- 
ment, of his watching his failing wife, of his sorrow over her 
death, Jefferson found distraction in the most charming of 
the products of his pen, "The Notes on Virginia," which, 
however, he did not publish until 1787. 

It is pitiful that there cling to George Washington and to 
Thomas Jefferson in the common tradition that passes from 
mouth to ear and from memory to mouth again scandals, — 
pitiful that certain Virginia families pride themselves upon 
bar sinisters in their ancestry. 

The scandals are facts that affected their careers and their 
social standing ; but the truth is as yet undetermined. Scandal 
like death loves the shining mark. 

Member of Congress. — In that fateful year when his wife 
died, Thomas Jefferson was thirty-nine years old. He never 
married again. Within a few months, he left Monticello 
and its sad associations, and went to Philadelphia to qualify 
as commissioner to France. But destiny determined that he 
should become a member of Congress instead. Until May, 
1784, he attended its sessions at Annapolis. When Wash- 
ington solemnly handed back his commission as Commander- 
in-Chief, it was Jefferson who wrote the address in leply 
read by the President of Congress. What emotions Jefferson 
felt when Washington then asked for the refunding of all 
his military expenses may not be presented here. Most 
patriots took their losses and expenses as final, and Jefferson 
had lost not only property but also children and wife. There 



26o LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

is everything in character. Scarcely any man in America 
needed money less than Washington; but they paid him in 
full. 

Decimal Money. — To Jefferson in the same Congress, 
we owe our system of money, — the gold eagle, the gold or 
silver dollar, the dime and the cent. He hated British guineas 
because he hated the British ; they together had bought Bene- 
dict Arnold, who had destroyed his home and killed his wife. 

To this Congress, upon his insistence, Virginia ceded her 
vast Northwest Territory. 

Diplomat in France. — Then as third minister plenipoten- 
tiary, Jefferson set out for Europe to negotiate commercial 
treaties. In June, he sailed from Boston with his daughters. 
They had never seen New England before. 

In Paris, French aristocracy received Jefferson as a peer. 
La Fayette knew him. French counts and barons had visited 
him in princely Monticello. He was a savant and a litterateur. 
He knew how to entertain guests at dinner. He was a grace- 
ful dancer, a good seat on horseback, something of a violinist 
and musician. He was a spendthrift and set up a fine estab- 
lishment. He read many languages, though he never spoke 
French well. All Paris was almost as happy over Jefferson 
the revolutionaire as it had always been over Franklin the 
scientist ; gay Paris was even happier. 

The Houdon Bust of Washington. — ^Jefferson bought 
the best watch to be had in France and sent it to James Madi- 
son ; lamps for Richard Henry Lee ; books for George Wythe 
and James Monroe. One thing he did among unusual things 
was with Dr. Franklin to order for the new Virginia State 
house a portrait bust of George Washington from the sculp- 
tor Jean Antoine Houdon, displaying the great general's per- 
sonal appearance far better than the equally famous picture by 
Gilbert Stuart. One who looks upon that marble verisimili- 
ture, — the extraordinary width between the eyes, the mighty 
neck, the stern set of the heavy jaws, — gets suggestions of 
force and strength far beyond the possibilities of representa- 
tion upon a plane surface. The artist came all the way to 
America to get a model in plaster from Washington himself. 

Jefferson aided many Americans then travelling or living 
abroad, including certain prisoners of "the Barbary pirates." 
He sent plants, nuts and seeds home to agricultural societies 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 261 

for trial planting, — these including heavy Italian rice. And 
he imported from America to France the pecan-nut. He kept 
in touch with scientific discoveries and technical inventions. 

Unfortunately in Paris, Jefferson so fractured his right 
wrist that he never played the fiddle again and had to learn to 
write with his left hand. 

The French Revolution. — While all these things are 
happening, the French Revolution approaches and arrives. 
The States-General of the realm meet. Mirabeau thunders. 
The Bastille falls. Jefferson sees the King brought forcibly 
from Versailles to Paris. He sits with sages and doctrinaires 
and extremists when the new Constitution is written. We 
suspect, though we cannot know, for all his letters of the 
period are lost, that he saw Robespierre and Marat, Viscount 
Beauharnais and Josephine, and perhaps even the youth 
Napoleon Bonaparte. 

In 1785, the youngest of the surviving daughters of Jeffer- 
son died, and soon he placed his two living children, Martha 
and Mary, in a convent school in Paris. They were beautiful 
girls, much like their mother. In 1 788, he made a trip through 
Belgium, Holland and the Rhine valley, seeing all the famous 
spots, incidentally attending to the business of refunding a 
million florins of the American debt to Holland. Late next 
year, with his daughters, he came home to Monticello, a 
cultivated, finished, in a sense, lonely man of the world. 

Secretary of State. — Already, Washington was Presi- 
dent and had asked Jefferson to be his Secretary of State. In 
March, 1790, he entered upon his duties, a fact that shows 
how slow was the early business of organizing our National 
Government. Alexander Hamilton had already preempted 
the citadel. Their first collision was an immediate victory for 
Hamilton, who secured for the bankers and speculators of the 
North the boon of the assumption of the State war debts, 
while Jefferson took for the South the apparently empty honor 
of the National Capital. For all its costs, to this day it is but 
a paradise in a wilderness of swamps and rocky hillocks upon 
tidewater, sweating wet hot in summer, damp and chill in 
winter, full of typhoid and malaria and pneumonia. But in 
the long years, Jefferson had all the best of the bargain, for 
the Potomac location of the Capital has been a critical feature 
of American history and highly valuable to the South. 



262 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

The National Bank. — The next collision between Hamil- 
ton and Jefferson was over the National Bank. Hamilton 
won, thereby laying up trouble for Jackson and Van Buren 
and for all other Americans but helping his Northern friends 
at the time. 

Then came the astonishing Genet episode. Even Jefferson, 
though pro-Gallic, could not endorse Genet and France. Jef- 
ferson really wished to help France. Circumstances com- 
pelled them to rebuke and to reduce Genet — to what? To 
private citizenship and a marriage with the daughter of Gov- 
ernor George Clinton of New York. The young Republican 
enthusiast Edward Charles Genet saw vicissitudes fast. He 
was a younger brother of that famous Madame Jeanne Genet 
Campan, who was lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette and 
later the teacher of the younger sisters of Napoleon, Emperor 
of the French. 

The Proposed Alliance with France. — Whether or 
not America broke her treaty with France in declining in 
1792 to help her against Great Britain is a question whose 
negative answer is one of the refinements of casuistry that 
history forever debates. The mother-country with her im- 
pressment of seamen on the ocean and with her encourage- 
ment of Indian aggressions on the land deserved no favor at 
our hands. She waited to reduce Napoleon before forcing a 
second war upon us. 

If we had helped France, and if France had defeated Great 
Britain, the Napoleonic dynasty might have become to West- 
ern Europe what the Hapsburgs are to Central Europe; it 
is an "if" fraught with meaning to democracy in America. 
George Washington refrigerated the hot ebullient first enthu- 
siasm of grateful America into his own stern and selfish, 
necessarily selfish, determination to establish a new nation. 
For a nation is a family, and with nations as well as families, 
charity begins at home. 

Retires to Monticello. — Dissatisfied with the course of 
these great events, December 31, 1793, Jefferson, against the 
wishes of Washington, retired from the Cabinet. Yet the 
President would not dismiss Hamilton; and one or the other 
had to go. When Jefferson reached Monticello, he found his 
estate seriously dilapidated. His ten thousand remaining 
acres sustained but three sheep! He set out to repair his 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 263 

fortunes as best he might. Both his daughters were now 
well married — to men who later served terms in Congress, 
and one, with her husband and children, came to live with 
him. 

In this period, he finished the building of his house, Intro- 
duced rotation of crops, and set out fruit trees. But the dif- 
ferences between his financial affairs and those of such a 
man as Washington were great. Jefferson had been away 
from America for several years, and no wife with abundant 
cash, like Martha Washington, had protected his interests. 
Death again and again had invaded his household. Forever, 
debt clung upon his skirts. He was remote from markets and 
not upon tidewater; his $30,000 wheat-mill had no wheat to 
grind. 

His hospitality had been unbounded. In 1794, he had 
ninety-three slaves and raised fifty-four bushels of wheat! 
And he loved books and correspondence and the conversation 
of friends. Moreover, he was building up the first and only 
party of consistent principles that this country ever saw; and 
he wrote all his letters now with an unskilful left hand. 

Becomes Vice-President. — In such circumstances, Jeffer- 
son was glad that in 1797 the Vice-Presidency and a small 
salary came to him. He had been a candidate for President 
but had lost by three votes. He made this office a strictly im- 
partial one of presiding; John Adams as Vice-President had 
considered himself as senator-at-large for the whole nation 
and had debated freely and daily. Jefferson who was quiet 
and who, like Washington, preferred to put what he had to 
say in black and white, never debated. Throughout the turbu- 
lent administration of Adams, Jefferson who was invariably 
suave and discreet, bided his time. In 1801, he ran again for 
President; but as luck would have it, tied for that office with 
Aaron Burr, the candidate of his own party for Vice-Presi- 
dent. It was a situation unforeseen by the makers of the Con- 
stitution who had thought that each elector would cast his 
vote for any man that he chose. Already, public opinion and 
party fealty tied the elector's hands. Congress decided by one 
vote for Jefferson. That one vote came to him through the 
Vermont Congressman Matthew Lyon who had personally 
suffered grievously from the Sedition Act,^ and had persuaded 
his colleague to change. 

^See pp. 97, 248, 249, supra. 



264 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Wins Presidency by One Vote. — It will not serve to an 
understanding of the situation as it actually existed in 1801 to 
think of Aaron Burr as we think of him to-day. Burr was the 
rival of Hamilton, a New York State politician, founder of 
Tammany Hall, able, magnetic, unscrupulous, surpassingly 
adroit, immensely ambitious, with no other stain upon his 
reputation than loose relations with women. The future was 
to disclose his inferiority to Jefferson and his essential evil. 

An Extreme Economist. — As President, Jefferson learned 
a lesson from the errors of Adams, who had continued the 
Cabinet of Washington, and promptly organized a new one, 
with James Madison as Secretary of State and with Albert 
Gallatin as Secretary of the Treasury. He stopped the enforce- 
ment of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which was wise, and 
through his supporters in Congress undertook to do away with 
internal revenue duties, which was unwise, and with all 
direct taxation, which again was unwise for a different 
reason. 

Direct taxation is honest and public and the only right taxa- 
tion in a democracy. He proposed to rely solely upon a cus- 
toms tariff for revenue only. This also was a mistake. By 
reducing the amounts of salaries and the number of positions, 
he cut down government expense. The former was wrong, 
the latter right. Cheap service is never good. By the total 
saving, he reduced the national debt, which was also right, 
for hereditary bondholders make a caste of snobs. But though 
he did some things financial well, he never understood finance, 
public or private. Not a few other Presidents have been 
equally lost at sea in matters of national finance — among them 
Lincoln, Grant and Roosevelt. 

Louisiana Purchased, Without Legal Warrant. — It 
was in 1803 that Jefferson accomplished his greatest achieve- 
ment — the purchase of Louisiana. He sent James Monroe, 
whom Frenchmen loved, to aid R. R. Livingston, then min- 
ister to France, in negotiating the purchase. Napoleon needed 
money. He had recently acquired Louisiana from Spain ; but 
he had armies and navies to finance. And he sold Louisiana 
for $15,000,000. With this and other funds, he won the 
war that he declared twelve days after settling the nego- 
tiation. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 265 

The purchase of Louisiana was entirely beyond any Con- 
stitutional authority or Congressional statute; but public 
opinion, outside of New England, was almost unanimous in 
approval of the action. If any other man of that day had 
been President, with the possible exception of Monroe, 
Louisiana would have remained French until 181 4. There- 
after like Canada, it would have belonged to Great Britain. 
Our United States might have been a little nation like Argen- 
tina or German. But Jefferson, in this instance, was the vis- 
ionary who performs, — in other words, an immortal statesman. 

It is, of course, true that Louisiana might have fallen to 
us by the luck of war. Without our $15,000,000, Napoleon 
would not have fought at Austerlitz. Without Louisiana in 
our hands, there might have been not a Monroe Doctrine but 
a line of forts on either side of the Mississippi; and a North 
America like South America or Europe. 

The Cabinets of Jefferson. — The story of Jefferson as 
President is partly disclosed by the history of his Cabinet, 
which was this : 

State — ^James Madison of Virginia. 

Treasury — Samuel Dexter of Massachusetts, succeeded by 
Albert Gallatin (Swiss) of Pennsylvania, who served nearly 
all of the eight years of Jefferson. 

War — Henry Dearborn of Massachusetts. 

Attorney- General — Levi Lincoln of Massachusetts, four 
years; Robert Smith of Maryland, brief term; John Breckin- 
ridge of Kentucky, two years; Caesar A. Rodney of Dela- 
ware, two years. 

Postmaster-General — ^Joseph Habersham of Pennsylvania, 
brief term; Gideon Granger of Connecticut, nearly eight 
years. 

Navy — Benjamin Stoddart of Maryland, brief term; 
Robert .Smith of Maryland, four years ; Jacob Crowninshield 
of Massachusetts, four years. 

This last new Department, talked of by Washington and 
by Adams, was developed by the war with Barbary pirates. 
Hitherto, our few ships were cared for in the War Depart- 
ment. But the new Department was capable of the ridiculous 
land gunboat Idea. 

Handsomely Re-elected. — In the year 1803, the war ships 
of America silenced the pirates of Tripoli and Algiers and 



266 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Morocco. In 1804, Lewis and Clarke explored the Louisiana 
Territory — at a cost in all to us of $2,500. In this same 
year, following an amendment to the Constitution establish- 
ing the present manner of electing the President and the 
Vice-President, Jefferson was reelected by a vote of 162 to 14 
for C. C. Pinckney. Clinton of New York became Vice-Presi- 
dent, winning over Rufus King. It was the second defeat of 
General Pinckney, for all that he had been conspicuous for 
gallant service at Brandywine and Savannah, No Southern 
Federalist ever got very far in national politics. Federalism, 
Whiggism and Republicanism have been discreditable in 
Southerners since Washington retired in 1797. 

The Embargo Acts. — The second term of his administra- 
tion was concerned mainly with that long chain of circum- 
stances leading to the Embargo Acts for which, by later states- 
men and publicists, Jefferson has been so greatly blamed. But 
the truth seems to be both that an embargo may have certain 
temporary values and that embargoes had long been standard 
measures of international struggle. The temporary values of 
keeping one's merchantmen at home are two : First, the pur- 
chasing nations are deprived of customary merchandise that 
may include necessaries of life and are thereby shocked into 
a partial realization of the presence of a crisis in international 
affairs; and, second, the merchant ships are safe at home 
pending the building or purchase of cruisers to protect them 
when next they do venture upon the high seas. 

The familiar assertion that in respect to the embargoes Jef- 
ferson persisted too long is totally erroneous. The price of 
flour rose in England to $19 a barrel, and so great was the 
popular clamor that in 181 2 she was forced to revoke her 
"Orders in Council." But it is true that Jefferson opposed 
a navy. For a time, his policy impoverished the country. 
In a measure, he played into the hands both of England 
and of France, — of England in that he quieted the Yankee 
traders who were the rivals of her merchants, and of France 
in that he raised the price of the merchandise need by Eng- 
land at home. But he angered New England and indeed all 
the coast cities ; and his conduct has been misrepresented ever 
since. He was perhaps too much the agriculturist and the 
theorist to see commercial interests truly; and he was never 
deeply interested in manufactures. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 267 

Burr Kills Hamilton. — Aaron Burr, grandson of the 
Reverend Jonathan Edwards, and hero of several Revolu- 
tionary battles, sought the governorship of New York State. 
Hamilton, his rival at the bar, accomplished his defeat; and 
then called him a "despicable" character. Burr challenged him 
to a duel. Both were immoral men, both were insolvent. 
Hamilton had eight children, one of his sons had been killed 
in a duel in 1802. Burr had one beautiful and brilliant daugh- 
ter, Theodosia. If both had been killed that July day in 
1804, history would have called them fairly matched. Burr 
was just a year older than Hamilton. Each had enjoyed the 
confidence of Washington. Undoubtedly, Burr was the abler 
soldier, though not braver. Undoubtedly, Burr was the abler 
politician. And almost undoubtedly, Hamilton was the more 
gifted statesman and the shrewder judge of men. Burr killed 
Hamilton, escaping unscathed ; and was ruined by his triumph. 
That duel nearly ended duelling in America. It made Hamil- 
ton at once a martyr and Burr ultimately an outcast 

The Alleged Treason of Aaron Burr. — Driven by 
criminal prosecutions into the Ohio valley, Aaron Burr 
conceived the great scheme of seating his dynasty on "the 
throne of the Montezumas" in Mexico. Many persons 
thought that he meant to include in his empire the Louisiana 
Territory that Jefferson had just bought from France. One 
of his fellow-conspirators, a vile creature in high office, Gen- 
eral Wilkinson, betrayed him; and the former United States 
Senator from New York and Vice-President, who had lost 
the Presidency itself by but one vote in Congress after a tie 
in the Electoral College, was tried for treason before the 
Supreme Court in 1807. 

It is one of the curious things of history that Burr, a Demo- 
crat like Jefferson, should have been supported in this trial 
by the Federalists. Even Chief Justice Marshall made rulings 
in his favor that are not supported to-day by impartial critics. 
Federalism so hated Jefferson that it loved Burr even in this 
terrible hour of his reputed treason. The Supreme Court 
acquitted him. But Ohio immediately rearrested him. He 
jumped bail and fled to Europe. Years later, he came back 
from his wanderings, tried to recover his law practice, — his 
first wife being long dead, — ^married for his second wife a 
widow like the first, quarrelled with her, and died in poverty 



^6g LIVES OF THE PRESID£NTS 

in 1836. And the strange thing about the affair is that a 
Burr Empire in Mexico might have been a good proposi- 
tion for all concerned. At any rate, rich John Jacob Astor 
thought so, for he had furnished money to Burr and Blenner- 
hasset, 

Prefjident Foils Chief Justice. — It is a tremendous and 
a romantic story that greatly concerned Thomas Jefferson. 
In his effort to get Burr punished, Jefferson defied the orders 
of the Supreme Court and made the Presidency absolutely 
above any and all judges. Ascendant Federalism had been 
defeated politically by Jefferson in 1800. Now in 1807, the 
Federalist judiciary finds its high-water mark a little lower 
than the Presidency. The Supreme Court cannot summon a 
President as a witness in any case whatsoever. Not yet had it 
undertaken to declare any act of Congress null and void for 
want of constitutionality. For years, the three departments 
would struggle for primacy. 

Home at Monticello. — Thomas Jefferson was an old 
man, nearly sixty-six, when he laid down the cares of office. 
He had named his successor, and went back gladly to Monti- 
cello. There he lived for seventeen years to come, — in a rich 
insolvency. He had to borrow $7,000 to leave Washington 
with all his debts to tradesmen paid. Home at last to stay, 
he gathered literally multitudes of friends and relatives about 
him, guests unnumbered, transient visitors, mere callers. He 
read books and replied to every letter. He counselled later 
Presidents, often wisely. He wrote his bitter "Anas" about 
his contemporaries. In a cabinet drawer, he kept and tenderly 
handled the mementoes of his wife and dead children. He 
tried to organize, under State approval, a lottery by which he 
could work off most of his lands and all his debts. Year after 
year, he labored to build the University of Virginia; and at 
last, from Monticello, he watched the first buildings rise in 
Charlottesville. He was the first rector of that institu- 
tion. In his last days he sold to Congress his library for 
$23,000.^ 

For nine months before his end he knew that he was dying. 
He was glad to go. Senility, poverty, and unwillingness to 
struggle were upon him. At eighty-three years of age, 
Thomas Jefferson died July 4, 1826, leaving one daughter and 
ten grandchildren. His executor settled his estate, paying 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 269 

every dollar of its debts by generously contributing to the 
creditors some twenty thousand dollars of his own. Such 
was the financial status of the author of the Declaration of 
Independence, the purchaser of the Louisiana Territory, and 
the founder of American democracy with its separation of 
religion and government and its creation of universal educa- 
tion. 

The Most Popular Man in American History. — No 
other President ever was so popular with Congress and the 
people as was Thomas Jefferson — He was in truth the most 
generally popular man whom this country ever had; from 
1800 to 1826, Jefferson was continuously our first citizen. 

The people forgot his rival John Adams of Massachusetts 
and looked upon Jefferson of Virginia as the successor in their 
hearts of George Washington. No New England man ever 
was a popular hero in America. For the main matter, Jef- 
ferson really believed in the people. His democracy was sin- 
cere. Questions might come and go. Democracy itself might 
answer them wrongly. But "let the majority rule" was Jef- 
fersonianism in its essence. "Vox populi vox Dei." 

For a third and lesser matter, Jefferson had great, at times 
grandiose ideas. And the generality like the man of big 
ideas. 

Again, Jefferson was personally of charming manners. He 
liked to please. He was quite feminine in this quality as in 
certain others. He could efface himself. He was not aggres- 
sively egotistical ; and though his conceits were many, he never 
forced them upon others. He was naturally genial, and his 
residence in France made him polite without being ceremo- 
nious. His early rival, John Adams, had grown ceremonious 
without being polite. 

But with these engaging qualities went at least one other 
not admirable. Jefferson was self -protective and adroit. He 
lived in the upper air of philosophic statesmanship, and let his 
followers down in the arena take the sword. This was con- 
spicuous in his assault upon the Federalist Supreme Court 
Justice Chase of Maryland, in his first administration, and it 
cost him the support of that brilliant leader, John Randolph, 
who resented being set to a fight with the terrible Luther 
Martin and then coolly dropped when he lost. Jefferson had 
a^nother quality still meaner; he spoke ill of certain rivals 



270 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

falsely. His overdrawn account of the early life of Patrick 
Henry is thoroughly discreditable to himself ; nor was this the 
only instance. Jefferson was a speculative scientist, careless 
of facts ; he aimed at goals, and was not too scrupulous of his 
paths. 

Compared with Washington. — Inevitably, we compare 
Thomas Jefferson with George Washington. In a few points, 
he is the superior; in most, he is the inferior; in some, he is 
incomparable. 

Jefferson helped win for us the region from Pittsburg to 
St. Louis by various acts in early days; and wholly won for 
us the region from New Orleans to Helena, Montana. Wash- 
ington won for us the region from Maine to Georgia. Jeffer- 
son was rich when he began life, poor when he died. Wash- 
ington was richer than Jefferson when he began life, and died 
far richer. We feel with and for the thriftless philosopher, 
not for the thrifty soldier-statesman. Jefferson suffered many 
personal sorrows all his life. Providence gave Washington 
no family of children, and his widow survived him. His was 
the narrower domestic life. 

Teacher of Americanism. — ^Jefferson conceived a con- 
sistent political and social philosophy. He violated each, how- 
ever, in his own acts. Washington had no philosophy; but a 
not too dull man can be consistent in action. 

In the record of George Washington, there are no "Anas." 
There is the imperishable story of the capture of the Hessians 
on Christmas morning. There is the valor at Monmouth, and 
the far-sighted strategy of Yorktown. There is the endur- 
ance, however stolid, at Valley Forge. 

Set them, side by side, these early heroes and statesmen, — 
Jefferson is more like Franklin than he is like Washington. 
Careless, if not worse, in some personal habits, erratic, free- 
handed, often balked and despairing, Jefferson never set him- 
self above or apart from common human nature, never was 
petty, never arrogant. It was solidity and force set over 
against brilliance and bigness. Neither was ideal or nearly 
ideal. Yet in his total service to America each one Comes 
down to us above Sam Adams, above Patrick Henry, above 
John Adams, far above Hamilton and Hancock, challenging 
first place in the mind of later posterity with Madison and 
Franklin. Later ages will study these four, — astonished at 



JAMES MADISON 271 

Franklin's genius, loving Jefferson, thinking through the wis- 
dom of Madison, and awed to silence by the serene dignity of 
the matured Washington. 



CHAPTER IV 

James Madison 

1809-1817 
1751-1836 

17-19 States iBio— Population 7,329,881 

Admitted : Louisiana, Indiana. 

Heir of Thomas Jefferson — early home — educated at Princeton — ^born a 
philosopher — became a general scholar — the Virginia Convention of 
1776 — member Assembly — member Governor's Council — member Con- 
tinental Congress in 1780 — the three-fifths rule as to slaves — mem- 
ber Virginia Assembly again — Annapolis Convention — navigation of 
the Mississippi — arduous and competent service in Federal Constitu- 
tional Convention — slavery debated — the coming factory system- 
bicameral legislature agreed upon — partly national, partly federal — 
items about important members — George Mason — James Wilson- 
Robert Morris — Alexander Hamilton — Luther Martin — checks and 
balances — a triune government — "The Federalist" — the struggle for 
ratification by Virginia — Madison against Henry, Mason, Lee and 
Randolph — a statesman — member of Congress — tax on slaves proposed 
— the Ten Amendments — Madison and the Hamilton-Jefferson bar- 
gain — the poor site of the Capital — the coming race-struggle — the 
Franklin abolition petition — a strict constructionist and State's Rights 
man — "The National Gazette" — married Dolley Payne Todd, social 
leader — the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions — our referendums — 
Secretary of State — a clerk to Jefferson — President — the Napoleonic 
Wars — Clay forces war — Washington burned — New Orleans victory — 
domestic manufactures — a slightly protective tariff adopted — regent 
University of Virginia — his temperament and character — a Constitu- 
tional President. 

Heir of Thomas Jefferson. — ^The Jeffersonian dynasty 
was a succession of three men to the Presidency, — Thomas 



272 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, — and harsh 
critics have often styled it a painful decrescendo. Madison 
inherited from Jefferson a theory of government — "the least 
government is the best government" — and an inevitable war. 

Not until Washington died in 1799, could John Adams be 
the first citizen of the land; and his term of office was too 
far gone for him ever to become that first citizen. By 1799 
Hamilton, in his own party, and Jefferson and Burr, then 
"Republican Democrats," disputed that distinction with him. 
As for Madison, his predecessor survived the close of his 
second term; and the President was never better than next 
to the first citizen of the land. 

His Home at Montpelier. — ^James Madison belonged 
from birth to death in beautiful Montpelier, Virginia, He 
happened to be bom at Port Conway March 16, 1751, where 
his mother was on a visit at her father's home. She was 
Nelly Conway, and James was the first born of her seven 
children. 

Educated at Princeton. — ^The Madisons were indepen- 
dent planters, as were also the Conways. They had means 
enough to provide a good college preparation for their oldest 
son ; and sent him not to William and Mary but up north to 
Princeton College, presumably to widen his horizon. At 
college, he was a prodigiously hard student, adding even He- 
brew and theology, in true Princeton style, to his other studies. 
Then he came home to Montpelier and set himself to teach his 
younger brothers and sisters. For years, his health suffered 
from over application to books, or was it from the climate, or 
from poor eyesight in an age of incorrect lenses in spectacles ? 
At first, he probably intended to become a minister; but the 
existing state of ecclesiastical affairs in Virginia deterred him. 
He was no enthusiast for an established church nor for any 
union of altar and throne. 

Member Virginia Convention of 1776. — Because he was 
a sober-minded, socially well-connected scholarly young man, 
— the first-bom of a landed family in an age of primogeniture, 
— in 1774 his county made James Madison, at twenty-three 
years of age, a delegate to the Committee of Safety; and 
for no other apparent reason. He was not a revolutionary 
enthusiast but rather a convinced philosopher, a child of the 
light. No philosopher is ever a reformer or soldier. 



JAMES MADISON i^Z 

In 1 776, Madison's county sent him to the Virginia Conven- 
tion, and he made what he called his first real "entrance upon 
public life." 

A General Scholar. — Graduated at Princeton in 1771, 
Madison had turned at home from theology to law and was 
now a member of the bar. But he had studied more than 
law, — beyond any other American, from mysterious sources 
not yet satisfactorily accounted for, by 1776 he had become 
thoroughly versed in the history of law and of jurisprudence, 
of politics and of social development, Virginia planters sent 
strange orders to their London agents; and for want of any 
other reasonable hypothesis, historians assume that James 
Madison, senior, ordered for James, junior, a considerable 
number of unusual books to be charged against the tobacco 
consignments. It is purely an hypothesis : no one knows. 

Member of Virginia Assembly. — In the Virginia Con- 
vention of 1776, Madison served upon the committee for a 
new Constitution; and when the Assembly succeeded to the 
authority of the House of Burgesses, he was elected a member. 
He failed of reelection, for the highly interesting reason that 
contrary to custom, he declined to treat the voters to potations 
of alcoholic beverages. But the Assembly thereupon immedi- 
ately elected him a member of the Governor's Council. In 
1 780, he was made a delegate to the Continental Congress, and 
was its youngest member. Within a year, he diagnosed the 
true cause of our troubles at that stage of the conflict, "One 
or two millions of guineas properly applied would diffuse 
vigor and satisfaction throughout the whole military depart- 
ment, and would expel the enemy from every part of the 
United States." It was the clear-sighted, naive view of the 
book-scholar; that was the issue of the struggle, — the 
control of the taxing power, the ownership of the golden 
stream. 

In 1780, Member Continental Congress. — For a time, 
Madison spent his energies upon the detail work of those 
multitudinous committees into which the Continental Congress, 
both legislative and executive in its nature, was forced. The 
government needed three million dollars annually for running 
expenses, and got barely a half million. The delegates were 
paid by their home constituencies. How to apportion the costs 
of government was the serious domestic question. In particu- 



274 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

lar, were the negro slaves men or real estate or naught for 
the purposes of taxation? 

The South wished the negroes counted for purposes of 
representation, and either omitted or scaled down in respect to 
taxation. It was Madison who, backed by Hamilton, pro- 
posed the three-fifths rule that later was carried over into 
the Constitution. 

The Annapolis Convention. — In 1784, Madison retired 
from Congress, under a vicious law denying reelections, and 
at once became a member of the Virginia Assembly. He gave 
himself almost wholly to matters of Virginia commerce, — 
especially her relations with Maryland and with England. 
There were questions of ports of entry, projects for deepen- 
ing the upper Potomac for navigation and for a canal from 
the Potomac to the Delaware, and problems of the relations 
of the State with the Confederation. In 1786, Madison was 
appointed as one of five Virginia delegates to a convention of 
the States at Annapolis to consider the whole situation. Vir- 
ginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York 
sent delegates, — eleven in all. North Carolina, Rhode Island, 
Massachusetts and New Hampshire promised delegates, but 
none came. The Convention would have been a failure, had not 
the eleven agreed to issue a call for a convention in May 
next year at Philadelphia. 

The Navigation of the Mississippi. — There was more 
than one trouble for the disturbed country to worry over. 
There was a controversy with Spain as to the navigation of 
the Mississippi, whose mouth and western shores she owned. 
John Jay, as minister to Spain, had proposed, as a compromise 
period, twenty-five years and sought to make a treaty upon 
that basis. Congress wavered on this point, and Madison 
held, with Virginia, that navigation must be free forever. 
The Southern States cared more to have New Orleans and 
lower Louisiana than the Northern States in union with them. 
This tremendous issue had a deal to do with the purchase of 
all Louisiana in 1803. 

Leader in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. — 
There were two parties in the Constitutional Convention of 
1787. One wished to fix up the Articles of Confederation, 
the other to make a new government. And there were two 
great problems, that, in a sense, were part and parcel of one 



JAMES MADISON 275 

another. One was how to keep the States In equality with one 
another in a federal system, and the other was how to keep 
the citizens in equality with one another. The smaller States 
were jealous of the great, — Delaware feared that Pennsyl- 
vania would absorb her ; and on the other hand, the numerous 
citizens of Massachusetts, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, the 
thickly populated States, saw that they might individually 
count for much less than the relatively few citizens of other 
States. None yet foresaw the sectional cleavage of North 
and South, 

The Two Main Issues. — The other problem was how to 
count the enslaved negroes. Were they men or not? It was 
the old question already threshed out in the Continental Con- 
gress. And it must be threshed out and silenced, not solved, 
all over again. The South wanted power, and made its de- 
mand, and stuck to it; Every slave was to count three-fifths 
as much as a man. There were 750,000 slaves. Obviously, 
the South meant to get an extra allowance of 450,000 popula- 
tion. 

The total population in 1790 was 4,000,000; of these 
one-third were in the South, of whom 700,000 were slaves, 
for there were still 50,000 slaves in the Northern States. 
In other words, every white man of the South was to have his 
own vote and more than half of that of one slave at his dis- 
posal. It requires but little reflection to see how indignantly 
many Northerners viewed the situation. No abolition view 
was necessary to create that indignation. If one man could 
have an extra vote for his slave, why not let his neighbor have 
an extra vote for his horse or for his sheep ? 

Let Charles Cotesworth Pinckney speak for the South : "If 
slavery be wrong, it is justified by the example of all the 
world." He avowed a desire to raise the slave States to an 
equality with the other States and struggled hard to have the 
voteless negro of the South count equally with all white voters 
for the purposes of the apportionment of representatives in 
Congress. This was that Pinckney whose fine, strong face 
and magnificent frame made him in appearance comparable 
with George Washington, and who later ran for the Vice- 
Presidency several times as the leader of the Southern Fed- 
eralists. 

And let Gouverneur Morris, who also in appearance closely 



276 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

resembled Washington, speak for the North: "If this [dis- 
tinction between South and North be real], instead of blend- 
ing incompatible things, let us at once take friendly leave of 
each other." He was bitter in his railing at the miserable 
condition of Southern agriculture and denounced slavery as 
"a nefarious institution." 

Evidently, they must compromise or part. There were 
abolitionists among the Southern delegates — among them 
was George Mason. There were pro-slavery delegates from the 
North — among them Ellsworth and Sherman. Madison 
forced the compromise. And any compromise helped the 
South. They had replied to the question, not answered it; 
silenced conscience, not solved the problem. And all the while 
they knew that the capitalists as opposed to the slaveowners 
were trying to get up a factory system to employ the cheap 
labor of women and children as in England and Scotland. 

The Bicameral Legislature. — The other and larger 
problem was worked out to a solution. Two houses they must 
have in the National Legislature ; let the higher one represent 
the States, the lower the people. The South desired the States 
to elect to both Houses ; but here the South by its spokesman 
Pinckney lost. Madison favored proportional representation 
in both Houses. A minor compromise gave to each State two 
Senators, but representation in the lower House according to 
population, slaves counting at three-fifths according to the 
agreement. 

Such were the famous compromises ; there were many 
others; Madison engineering most of them. As one reads 
the collected journals of the Constitutional Convention, the 
greatness of his service, the immensity of the labor that he 
performed through that long summer in Philadelphia grows 
upon the mind. There were other, and apparently abler men 
present, there was none other more useful. To him are due 
more of the features of the resulting National Government 
than to any other one man. 

The Foremost Men in the Convention. — The promi- 
nent men of the Convention were these, viz. : 

George Mason was of first-class statesmen timber ; in human 
probability would have made a better President than any of 
the early Presidents except Jefferson. He would not have 
bought Louisiana. He believed in localized government. 



JAMES MADISON 277 

thought that power lodged remotely was dangerous, and was 
quite right in so thinking. 

Charles Pinckney of South Carolina was then but twenty- 
nine years old, standing upon the threshold of a long and bril- 
liant career. C. C. Pinckney was a duller man, but not so 
dull that he could not strike off an occasional splendid phrase, 
such as "Millions for defence, not a cent for tribute." He 
was a brave soldier, something of a diplomat, and much of 
a politician. 

James Wilson of Pennsylvania later became a Justice of the 
Supreme Court. He was a canny Scot by birth. Roger Sher- 
man, one of the oldest members, was a Massachusetts Yankee, 
resident in Connecticut. He soon became United States Sena- 
tor. John Rutledge of South Carolina was in the middle of 
a great career. Later a Justice of the Supreme Court. Senate 
politics prevented his confirmation as Chief Justice — to which 
position Washington had nominated him. He was a member 
of Congress at the time of his death. Edmund Randolph of 
Virginia later became State Governor and United States At- 
torney-General. 

Robert Morris, English by birth, was the greatest specula- 
tor in lands that the early history of the nation developed. 
For six years, he was United States Senator. Washington 
real estate ventures helped his financial ruin. Gouverneur 
Morris had a splendid career as diplomat and Senator, banker 
and fortune-maker. He was audacious, aristocratic, and very 
clever, too, too clever to be popular, — clever and not too 
scrupulous. Rufus King, Maine Yankee, moved to Massa- 
chusetts and then to New York. He was a Senator for three 
terms, not continuous, however. The common verdict upon 
him is that he graded nearly as high as George Mason in char- 
acter and in ability. 

Elbridge Gerry rose to be Governor of Massachusetts in 
1810 and Vice-President of the United States in 1813 : he was 
keen and radical in his views. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut 
was a safe, judicious man, who was our Chief Justice for 
the four years from 1796 to 1800. 

John Dickinson who sojourned in Maryland, Delaware and 
Pennsylvania, as his whim and worldly occasion led him, was 
a singular character, — smart, independent, tactful, with ai 
ready pen and a ready tongue. The Revolution got away 



278 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

from him, traveling too fast; but though lukewarm, he re- 
mained a Patriot sympathizer. Dickinson College bears his 
name. Membership in this Convention was his last official 
service, though he lived far into old age, dying in 1808. His 
enemies said that his wealth finally made him timid and lazy. 

Pierce Butler, Irish born, was brilliant and brave. Later, 
he became Senator from South Carolina. 

Alexander Hamilton was a native of the West Indies, — one 
of the astonishing figures of our history. He could write 
admirably well and speak almost as well. Brilliant, insincere, 
unsound, corrupt, arrogant, reckless, Hamilton made a great 
part of our early history. In an era of universal manhood 
suffrage, he would have been less powerful. In our own day, 
considered politically only, such United States Senators from 
New York as Chauncey M. Depew and Elihu Root are of 
the same type, though their private lives are far different. 
Hamilton should berth with Thomas H. ("Tom") Piatt in 
American moral public opinion. 

Last, Luther Martin, the terrible, who being disgusted with 
the "monarchical nature" of the Constitution withdrew from 
the Convention. Martin became a thorn in the flesh of 
Thomas Jefferson. He died penniless in the almost penniless 
home of Aaron Burr, whose acquittal for treason he had se- 
cured. He swung about for domicile from New Jersey to 
Maryland and to Virginia and then to New York, always a 
free soul, strong, and valiant. Drink ruined without killing 
him. Like Martin Luther, this Luther Martin was a born 
protestant against things as they are whatever they are, — full 
of discontent, to his friends an angel, to his enemies the chief 
of devils. Loved and hated, learned, wonderfully well 
learned, yet original, Martin is worth knowing. To know him 
is to understand the inner life of this nation from 1775 to 
1826. (He died six days later than Adams and Jefferson.) 
Those who know the real story of Luther Martin, the forces 
that he fought, his own sins, his great and necessary legal vic- 
tories for Judge Chase and for Vice-President Burr, will 
never again tolerate the glossings of orthodox history, gloss- 
ings that make it so far false and non-standard. 

The Contribution of Pelatiah Webster. — These men, 
most of whom were young, created a government of divided 
powers, — a system of checks and balances. For their original 



JAMES MADISON 279 

plan, they all borrowed directly from the pamphlet published 
in 1783 by Webster, of Philadelphia, who at the doors of 
Congress devised and talked over with leading Americans for 
years the five main new principles of our federal government. 
These were : First, direct taxing power for the national gov- 
ernment, a power to levy upon the people ; second, the formal 
division of the government into three branches, legislative, 
executive and judicial ; third, the bicameral legislature ; fourth, 
reservation to the States of all powers not delegated by them 
to the Nation; and fifth, a single executive with a council. 
Webster was a distinguished political economist, then past 
sixty years of age. Three young men especially relied upon 
him, though he was not a member of the Convention, — these 
were Madison, Hamilton, and Charles Pinckney. 

James Madison was constantly quoting historical pre- 
cedents, doubtless from those books in his father's library and 
from those which Jefferson had been sending over to him from 
France. 

A Triune Government. — Until 1787, nothing of the kind 
had ever been projected before, — a president who was at the 
top and yet was no King, an administrator and guide and yet 
no sovereign ; a legislature that could not execute, did not need 
to obe}!' the head of the government, and could not interpret 
its own laws; and a judiciary that was independent of the 
appointing power. In the separation of these three functions, 
the individual was to find his freedom from the tyrant who 
was legislator, judge and executioner. And this triune gov- 
ernment was to have no relation whatsoever wnth religion! 
Church was not mentioned. "There is no God" (named) "in 
the Constitution." Here was radicalism enthroned at last. 
The State could plead against the individual no sanction of 
divine authority. 

The Federalist. — Virginia was the ninth State to ratify, 
thinking at the time that it was the eighth. But New Hamp- 
shire had preceded her. Virginia was held for the Constitu- 
tion by James Madison. No other man save Alexander Ham- 
ilton had so hard a fight on his hands. Together, Hamilton, 
Madison, and Jay wrote "The Federalist," — the first writing 
forty-six papers, the second twenty-nine, and the last five. 
They are of about equal merit, — Hamilton's are the most 
logical and the keenest, Madison's the. most scholarly and per- 



28o LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

suasive, Jay's first in literary style. "The Federalist" con- 
vinced the wavering and helped to give to the advocates of 
the Constitution their bare majorities in several States. 

The Struggle for Ratification in Virginia. — In Vir- 
ginia, Madison found arrayed against him no less a leader 
than Patrick Henry himself; and George Mason, Richard 
Henry Lee and Edmund Randolph. Washington was at 
home at Mount Vernon, from which he wrote many letters. 
The fight lasted a month, and Madison won by eighty-nine 
votes to seventy-nine. 

Patrick Henry punished Madison by causing his defeat in 
the Virginia Legislature for the United States Senate; and 
put up James Monroe against him when he ran for member 
of the House of Representatives in the First Congress under 
the Constitution. But Madison carried his district, and 
Monroe stayed home, to become in 1790 a Senator of the 
United States. 

Father of the Constitution. — The years 1787 and 1788 
were anni mirabili in the life of James Madison, "Father of 
the Constitution." Whether or not he made mistakes with 
his compromises and balances, he made a constitution and 
guided a nation's history. Whether or not he was indis- 
pensable in the sense that George Washington seemed indis- 
pensable is scarcely worth more than a mere asking; he was 
central. 

Statesmen and Politicians. — Often in history, men begin 
as politicians to end as statesmen. Sometimes, they begin as 
statesmen to end as politicians. Some men are always states- 
men, others always politicians, none are always both states- 
men and politicians. Most of the Presidents have been politi- 
cians only. 

With his entrance into Congress March, 1789, James Madi- 
son became a partisan. 

Tax on Slaves Proposed in Congress. — Two days after 
the inauguration of Washington, Madison led off with a bill 
to tax imports and the tonnage of vessels entering our ports. 
Then and there, he proposed a tariff to help our "infant indus- 
tries." The perhaps not immortal phrase is Madison's own. 
A colleague of his from Virginia proposed to lay a tax of 
ten dollars upon every slave imported. Elbridge Gerry of 
Massachusetts and Madison and two other Virginians alone 



JAMES MADISON 281 

voted for the tax. New England rum and Southern slavery 
had their wedding in the first session of Congress. The slaves 
and the slave-master together controlled nearly every vote. 
The amendment of Jonathan Parker of Virginia was lost; 
and the impost of five per cent, established, excluding slaves, 
who were on the free list alone ! 

Next, the question came up as to whether in providing that 
the President should appoint only "by and with the advice and 
consent of the Senate" meant that he could not remove with- 
out that "advice and consent." Madison favored the affirma- 
tive, — to allow removal solely by the President. On a tie vote 
in the Senate, John Adams, Vice-President, voted affirma- 
tively. Without such power, the President would be helpless ; 
and government would be at an impasse always. 

Amendments to the Constitution. — Madison himself 
moved the adoption of twelve amendments to the Constitution 
and their submission to the States. Ten were ratified. They 
made for individual liberty.^ 

The Hamilton- Jefferson Bargain. — It was James Madi- 
son who by one majority log-rolled through Congress the com- 
promise by which State debts of $21,000,000 were assumed by 
the Nation (Massachusetts getting $4,000,000 and South 
Carolina a like amount, the other States less each) in ex- 
change for a site for the National Capital in the South. 
Northern bankers got the money. It was a bad compromise. 
It put the residents at the Capital, the members of Congress, 
and the officers and clerks of government under slavery in- 
fluences. 

As Lincoln often said in conversation: "This city is 
hostile to us." The site is too hot in summer for white men 
to work in. It is uninhabitable for three months in the year. 
Those who try to stay there weaken their constitutions. The 
site has raised the death rate abnormally. Every special ses- 
sion of Congress during July and August has cost prominent 
men's lives. And the compromise exchanged something per- 
manent for something temporary, something of mere expedi- 
ency for something of absolute justice. The Capital might 
have gone elsewhere. The debts had been contracted to win 
the War and were a matter of right-and- wrong. 

Specious arguments were indeed employed against paying 
these war-debts. Speculators owned them ; and would make a 

^See p. 71, supra. 



282 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

great profit. Some States had paid part of their debts. Madi- 
son was really against assumption, though it meant $3,200,000 
to Virginia. He got the hundred square miles on the two 
sides of the Potomac as his price for surrender; and pleased 
Washington and the Virginians, though he offended the 
Pennsylvanians who probably would otherwise have had the 
Capital. The site was not central even then, — one-third only 
of the people lived south of the Potomac. 

The Site of the Capital. — It is useless to say that if the 
site had been farther north, the southern section would have 
seceded earlier and probably successfully, for the South would 
probably have had no cause for secession. Slavery would 
have been left undisturbed. If it be replied that the war was 
necessary in order to get rid of slavery, the answer is that 
slavery was never worth fighting over. The war destroyed 
chattel-slavery but left wage-service and created race-hatred. 
The two real issues are a thousand times greater — the race- 
struggle, and the right of the laborer to all of his product. 
The former is a principle of anthropology displayed in all 
history. The latter is a question of casuistry and a problem 
in mathematics. The South is a natural home of blacks; 
climate and soil favor them. A thousand years hence, our 
descendants and successors will look upon the Interstate War, 
as upon nearly all other wars, as unnecessary, childish, barbaric, 
and futile. 

Slavery. — Madison had perfectly foreseen the real issue. 
He told in the Convention and in Congress just what he fore- 
saw, — said it pleasantly like a gentleman, clearly like the 
sage he was. We do not need slaves, or slavery, or blacks. 
Let us prohibit slavery and the immigration of Africans. If 
we cannot prohibit, let us discourage slavery and immigration 
by taxing black immigrants. But dullness and cupidity de- 
feated him. Few human beings can learn anything save from 
bitter experience; and not always from that. Unfortunately 
in history, the fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth 
are set on edge. 

The men of the First Congress are in no wise responsible 
for the lack of foresight that time would come when three- 
fourths of the people would live west of the District of 
Columbia and seven-eighths of them north of it. They are, 
however, responsible for their lack of impartiality in deciding 



JAMES MADISON 283 

the question as they honestly understood it. They did not 
decide it ; they dickered and bargained. Debt speculators and 
land speculators in Congress itself and others lobbying 
about Congress won easily. Washington eagerly signed the 
bills. 

To this same Congress came a Quaker memorial and an 
Abolitionist petition against slavery. The latter was signed, 
and probably written, by Benjamin Franklin. Gerry backed 
the proposition to interfere with the "Biblical institution." 
He advised buying all the slaves, precisely as Lincoln did 
seven decades later. Madison favored some measure looking 
to emancipation. 

The National Gazette. — Gradually, Madison was becom- 
ing a strict constructionist ; he opposed Hamilton's proposition 
for a national bank, but was beaten two to one. It was the 
first painful break between the two Federalist leaders. The next 
serious break was for Jefferson, then Secretary of State, with 
Madison's help in Congress, to set up Frenau in the combined 
offices of translator in the department of State and of editor 
of an Anti-Federalist weekly paper. Frenau had a salary of 
only two hundred and fifty dollars; but his paper "The 
National Gazette" became a power in the land, a source of 
trouble to Washington himself, and a center of controversy. 
Madison and others mailed the paper under their own franks 
as members of Congress. There was as yet no "Congressional 
Record" printed by the Government and distributed gratis. 
Hitherto, the sessions of Congress like those of the Constitu- 
tional Convention had been practically hidden from the public 
view. 

Madison versus Hamilton. — In 1792, Washington pro- 
posed to retire ; and Jefferson in fact soon did retire. This left 
Madison in Congress pitted against Hamilton in the Cabinet. 
And Madison led an attack on the financial honesty of Hamil- 
ton in respect to the sale of bonds in France that totally failed. 
There was also a quarrel because Hamilton would not pay 
funds to the French government, when he could not know from 
season to season in that whelming time what the true French 
government was. And a third quarrel arose over the Presi- 
dential proclamation of neutrality between the United States 
and both France and England in their international war. 
Hamilton was "Anglicist," Madison "Gallican." Fortunately, 



284 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Genet was so much the fool and madman that the outcome 
was opera bouffe. 

Next, there raged the furious controversy over Jay's treaty, 
which was ratified in February, 1796. The strange proceed- 
ings of Monroe in Paris accompanied the treaty negotiations ; 
he was not the American minister, as he should have been, but 
the Republican partisan. As such, the would-be democratic 
cosmopolite was necessarily recalled. 

DoLLEY Madison. — At the same time that George Washing- 
ton retired from the Presidency, James Madison retired from 
Congress, At forty- three years of age, he had married Dolley 
(Payne) Todd, a widow of twenty-six years, with two chil- 
dren, and now would build for his bride and himself a beautiful 
home at Montpelier. He was trying to forget at last his rejec- 
tion in early manhood by a girl with whom he was infatuated. 

The Virginia-Kentucky Resolutions. — In this period 
of retirement, Madison wrote at Richmond the Virginia reso- 
lutions to support the Kentucky resolutions that Jefferson had 
prepared for Kentucky, in which the doctrine of State nullifi- 
cation was set forth, to oppose the Alien and Sedition laws 
passed by Congress in the administration of John Adams. 
Jefferson and Madison asserted that a majority of the States 
could nullify an unconstitutional law. It is a form of the 
modern doctrine of the referendum. In truth, it sets up public 
opinion as registered in the State legislatures as the final court. 
The Supreme Court had not yet set itself up as that final au- 
thority. Marshall won as against Jefferson, The referendum 
went to a few judges, not to many legislators. 

The Referendums According to Our System. — In full 
truth, according to our system, there are three referendums, 
each partial. The President can refuse to execute a law of 
Congress or a decision of Court, — at the risk of impeachment. 
Congress can tinker with a decision of Court by new legisla- 
tion and ignore or laugh at a message, even an order, of the 
President, — at the risk of its members' reelections. The Court 
is not really final, — President and Senate can change its mem- 
bership, and Congress can often legislate a decision out of its 
real import.^ Congress and President can give the courts many 

^But see p. 302, infra. Congress holds the purse. Per contra, p. 577, 
infra. 



JAMES MADISON 285 

disagreeable duties to perform quite contrary to accepted legal 
and juristic precedent. 

Public Opinion. — It is a system of delay. In twenty years, 
after a conflict of branches, perhaps even in ten, public opinion 
wins its will and rules the government. 

But it is not always, not often, an intelligent, enlightened, 
vigorous and disinterested public opinion. Verily, there is no 
God but God. Verily, no form of democracy is His prophet, — 
neither the democracy of town-meeting nor that of voters 
whose suffrage is based upon property, neither the democracy 
of equal universal suffrage of both sexes nor that of male 
voters who can read and interpret the Constitution and the 
laws. There is only one God, and He speaks only to the indi- 
vidual who considers, who in the literal sense of "consider" 
deliberately sets his course by the stars of principle. His is 
the only referendum worth while ; and seldom does it concern 
more persons than himself. 

Secretary of State. — James Madison had been offered a 
Cabinet portfolio by Washington but had declined. In 1801, 
President Jefferson made him Secretary of State; and the 
story of Madison for eight years is simply a part of the story 
of his official chief and his most intimate friend. Jefferson 
ruled his Cabinet and Congress as no other man ever ruled 
them before or since. He was a generator of ideas for other 
men to carry out. Though the purchase of Louisiana and the 
non-importation and embargo laws all came within the field 
of the Department of State, the will and hand were those of 
Jefferson ; and Madison simply operated for him. The whole 
business unhappily culminated in the second administration 
of James Madison as President. 

President of the United States. — In his first election, 
Madison had 122 votes in 175. In New England, only Ver- 
mont voted for him. 

And now began the worst of the trickeries of Napoleon and 
of the British ministry. Canning sent over Erskine and repu- 
diated him and his agreement by which Madison had been led 
to release a thousand ships for the ocean trade. Embargoes 
were laid and released and laid again. Napoleon announced 
revocation of decrees provided Great Britain would revoke 
orders In council. The worst of all the offences was the Ram- 
bouillet decret, March, 1810, by which Napoleon confiscated 



286 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

$40,000,000 worth of American ships and goods in Dutch, 
French, Spanish, and ItaHan ports. In February, 181 1, a 
member of Congress denounced Napoleon as "that monster at 
whose perfidy Lucifer blushed and hell stands astonished." 
The denunciation was probably deserved, though it certainly 
accomplished nothing in Congress. In March, that body ad- 
journed, leaving matters far more strained with England than 
with Napoleon. England impressed thousands of our seamen, 
most of them deserters from her tyrannical navy, France none. 
A Yankee might be also an Englishman, but not also a French- 
man. 

Clay Forces War. — In May, 191 1, "the President," Ameri- 
can, forty-four guns, fought the "Little Belt," eighteen guns, 
British, off Sandy Hook. "The President" won, losing but one 
man to thirty lost by its opponent. And still, for all the public 
excitement, war did not come. In the late fall, Congress met 
and listened to complaints of American trade damaged in the 
Baltic ; Henry Clay was present and other new men, and young 
men, hot for war. In April, a 90-day embargo was laid. 
June 3, war was declared by a vote in the House of not quite 
two to one. 

In the mean time, in caucus, the Democrats had decided 
to nominate Madison for reelection. Madison as well as Jef- 
ferson was almost a peace-at-any-price man; but at the 
price of a second term, he was for war. It is a highly impor- 
tant fact that if the President's term, beginning in 1809, had 
been for six or seven years, there would have been no War of 
1812 or 1814 either. Yet Madison was now so much for war 
that he paid $50,000 for some letters exchanged between an 
Irish adventurer by the name of Henry and the governor of 
Canada, alleging that they proved a conspiracy in New Eng- 
land to secede and to join Canada. In fact, they proved noth- 
ing; but they served their jingoistic purpose. 

City of Washington Burned by British. — With no whit 
more reason to attack England than France, we were rushed 
into an invasion of Canada that ended disgracefully. Our 
Capital was raided, many buildings were burned, and Balti- 
more was attacked. On the sea, we won many brave little 
duels, and on Lake Erie a glorious battle of fleets. Then we 
made a treaty and said nothing about impressment of seamen. 
We had done exactly what Napoleon intended ; we had helped 



JAMES MADISON 287 

him. against England; he was paid a second time for Louis- 
iana. But when the treaty of peace was about to be signed, 
Napoleon was a king in exile upon Elba; the leading New 
Englanders were discussing constitutional revision at Hart- 
ford with possible secession ; and brave, blundering Pakenham, 
brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, was going on to 
New Orleans to meet defeat and death at the hands of Andrew 
Jackson and his soldiers. 

New Orleans Victory Saves Us from Disgrace. — That 
rout at the mouth of the Mississippi with the naval victories 
saved Madison from universal ridicule. The War of 1812 was 
almost perfectly incompetent in its management and, as the 
events of international history with the crisis a few months 
later at Waterloo showed, probably unnecessary. The em- 
bargoes and the war together had ruined our shipping irre- 
coverably. 

But there were some gains. The embargoes had turned our 
people to domestic manufactures. The war raised us a little 
in the respect of England, and made us a little less ready to 
try war soon again. 

A Protective Tariff Passed. — Two years of Madison's 
second term remained after peace was declared. The National 
Capital must be rebuilt. The National Bank was strengthened. 
A protective tariff was inaugurated with duties but slightly 
above revenue standards. In these two years, the national 
"era of good feeling" was begun. 

The Cabinet History of His Administrations. — The 
Cabinet of Madison saw many changes. It was as follows, 
viz. : 

State, — Robert Smith of Maryland, two years; James Mon- 
roe of Virginia, six years. 

Treasury, — Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania, five years; 
George W. Campbell of Tennessee, brief term; Alexander J. 
Dallas of Pennsylvania, two years ; William H. Crawford of 
Georgia, one year. 

War, — ^William Eustis of Massachusetts, four years ; John 
Armstrong of New York, one year; James Monroe, one year; 
William H. Crawford, two years. 

Attorney-General, — Caesar A. Rodney of Delaware, two 
years; William Pinckney of Maryland, three years; Richard 
Rush of Pennsylvania, three years. 



288 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Postmaster-General, — Gideon Granger of Connecticut, five 
years; Return J. Meigs, Jr., of Ohio, three years. 

Navy, — Paul Hamilton of South Carolina, four years; Wil- 
liam Jones of Pennsylvania, one year; B. W. Crowninshield 
of Massachusetts, three years. 

The "War of 1812" led to some peculiar conditions in re- 
spect to the War Department. The army was miserably 
handled, being full of aged War of Independence veterans and 
not unafHicted by v^hat we call nowadays "graft and corrup- 
tion." 

Home at Montpelier. — In 1817, Madison retired to 
Montpelier, living there as a planter. He became a member 
of the board of control of the University of Virginia, and 
spent his leisure in correspondence with his friends. In 1829, 
he served in the Virginia Convention to revise the Constitu- 
tion. He now became a total abstainer and an earnest advo- 
cate of the wide-sweeping "temperance" movement. Upon 
January 28, 1836, at eighty-five years of age, he died peace- 
fully. Mrs. Madison, twenty-one years his junior, survived 
him for thirteen years, spending her winters in Washington, 
where she was easily the social leader. 

In all his personal morals, James Madison was irreproach- 
able. He was a competent business man, constantly improv- 
ing his estate, yet he did not die rich, for he had no love of 
riches. Of slaves he possessed only a hundred, of whom not 
one was ever whipped. 

A Constitutional President. — Though a devoted 
younger friend of Jefferson, in temperament he was totally 
unlike him, being cool, reserved, slow, patient and industrious. 
His industry was concentrated upon a few main lines. He 
might have made a better Justice of the Supreme Court and 
a far better Senator than he did either Secretary of State or 
President. Either of his rivals — C. C. Pinckney in 1808, 
DeWitt Clinton in 181 2 — might have done better for us. Yet 
the latter in 1825 opened the Erie Canal, realizing the dream 
of Washington to connect East and West by a waterway. 

Madison so hated war that he could not call out half a 
million militia and teach them the manual of arms, sword- 
play, and shooting, and thereby reawaken man's primitive 
blood-lust. The "War of Absurdities" lasted two years, 
Madison was President for eight. During six of those years, 



JAMES MONROE 289 

he was one of the best Presidents whom we have had. And 
he was always scrupulously constitutional in his operations 
and methods. 



CHAPTER V 
James Monroe 

181 7-1825 
1758-1831 

19-24 States 1820 — Population 9,633,822 

Admitted: Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, Missouri. 

Last of the Jeffersonian dynasty — early life — educated briefly at William 
and Mary — soldier under Washington — became colonel — member Vir- 
ginia Assembly — inter-state trade wars — Western tour — on committee 
that gave the Northwest to the United States — opposed ratification of 
Federal Constitution — did not trust Washington — opposed Madison — 
United States Senator — sent by Washington to France — married wife 
who was well connected — friends in France — his public performances 
there — Jay Treaty opposed — feeling of an American in France respect- 
ing Washington — Governor of Virginia — agent with R. R. Livingston 
to buy Louisiana — Napoleon — member Virginia Assembly — Governor 
again — Secretary of State — our losses on the sea in men, in ships and 
in goods — Secretary of War — Washington sacked — heir both of Jef- 
ferson and of Madison — defeated Rufus King for Presidency — makes 
tours of the country — purchase of Florida — J. Q. Adams — Missouri 
Compromise — reelected, one complimentary vote missing — the Monroe 
Doctrine — Alaska — the European situation — precedents for the mes- 
sage — Webster quoted — a Pan-American Congress — the Cabinet 
troubles — regent of University of Virginia — money troubles — per- 
sonal appearance — irreproachable in morals — Supreme Court declares 
a State law null — Monroe a democrat at heart. 

Last of the Virginia Dynasty. — The fifth President of 
the people of the United States was born in Westmoreland 
County, Virginia, April 28, 1758. Not many miles away 
were the homes of the Washingtons and of the Lees. He was 
the third in the Jeffersonian dynasty and even more the 
protege and disciple of the master than was James Madison. 
By temperament, Monroe was ardent and affectionate. He 



290 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

had the good fortune to be President in an era of peace, both 
domestic and international, following a period of unrest and 
unreason, of storm and distress, of awakening and violence, 
and preceding the eager readjustments that followed from this 
brief epoch of calm. 

Educated at William and Mary College. — His father 
was Spence Monroe, a small planter; his mother, Eliza Jones, 
whose brother was a district court judge in the next county- 
north on Chesapeake Bay. About 1775, with what preparation 
is unknown, James Monroe entered William and Mary Col- 
lege. A year later, he was off to join the Continental Army 
near New York. There as a lieutenant, he fell under the eye 
of Washington. He was a fighting soldier, — was wounded 
in the shoulder at Trenton, and played brave parts at Brandy- 
wine, Germantown and Monmouth while half -invalid James 
Madison was teaching his little brothers at home at Mont- 
pelier. At Charleston, Monroe became lieutenant-colonel in 
the service of Virginia. 

Member Continental Congress in 1783. — Late in 1780, 
he became closely associated with Governor Thomas Jefferson, 
with whom he took counsel as to his studies. He soon entered 
the Virginia Assembly as a delegate, and in 1783 he was sent 
to the Continental Congress, remaining a member until 1786. 

Perhaps no other man in public life saw more clearly than 
did James Monroe the necessity of committing to the general 
government the regulation of trade, and thereby putting an 
end to tariffs and imports and trade-wars between the States. 
It was in 1784 that Monroe, Jefferson, and others delivered 
to Congress the deed of all Virginia claims to the Northwest 
Territory. 

Western Tour. — In order to understand this territory, 
Monroe made a tour from Albany to Lake Erie and to the 
Ohio river and thence home. It was in the third yeaf after- 
ward that Congress, led by its President William Grayson, 
dedicated the Northwest Territory to freedom, — but , the 
South secured the amendment that fugitive slaves might be 
recovered. On the I3tn day of July, 1787, by unanimous vote 
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Dela- 
ware, — slave States, — with New Jersey, New York and 
Massachusetts determined the final outcome of the struggle 
between free labor and slave labor. Pennsylvania, Maryland, 



JAMES MONROE 291 

Connecticut and Vermont were not present to vote. By this 
time, Monroe was back in the Virginia Assembly and was a 
member of the committee that promptly decided to recom- 
mend that the legislature ratify this abdication. 

As by Madison, so by Monroe, these troublous last years of 
the Confederation were years devoted to hard study of great 
political and constitutional questions. He did not attend the 
Constitutional Convention of 1787; and in 1788, as a member 
of the Virginia State Convention, he opposed its ratification. 
For his opposition, he assigned two reasons : First, that there 
were too many opportunities for friction between the National 
and State governments, — he feared overlappings, not twilight 
zones ; and, second, that the President might be reelected again 
and again and become a despot. Like some other men, 
he fancied that Washington was too dull to see how he was 
being used by designing monarchists, lords of trade and of 
capital. 

His Relations with Washington and with Madison. 
— There may have been something of jealousy of Madison in 
this opposition by Monroe to the Constitution. He was but a 
year younger than Madison, and Madison was a very young 
man to wield so great influence. In sheer achievement up to 
this time, Monroe had done many more things than Madison 
who never drew sword in the war. It must have wounded 
Monroe to be defeated by Madison when they ran against 
one another for Congress. But in 1 790, when Senator William 
Grayson died, Monroe attained the higher body in Congress 
and was at last above his rival. They had always been out- 
wardly friends ; and now political developments and a common 
affection for Thomas Jefferson soon drew them strongly to- 
gether. Monroe constantly opposed all of Hamilton's 
measures. 

It was a strange, dramatic twist that Washington suddenly 
gave to the career of Monroe by nominating him in 1794 as 
minister to France to succeed Gouverneur Morris. He choose 
between Monroe and Aaron Burr! What history was made 
in that choice! "I really thought that I was among the last 
men to whom the proposition would be made," said Monroe 
to Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State. At the same time, 
Washington sent Jay to England. 

Diplomat in France. — In sending Monroe to France, the 



292 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

President had two purposes, one great, the other small. The 
first was to have a French sympathizer, an American "Repub- 
lican" in the French Republic; the second was to get out of 
the way of Hamilton a shrewd domestic opponent. He knew 
that some men feared lest an American social revolution 
echo the French cataclysm. To Monroe instructions were 
given in the closest detail, — to cement the friendship with 
France, to get France to help us in winning from Spain free 
navigation of the Mississippi, and, perhaps at some shift in 
international affairs to acquire the Mississippi. It is well to 
remember this, for it has an important bearing upon future 
events. All this was discussed in Cabinet meetings. 

Marriage. — To those who care to pursue the inner rela- 
tions of history, it is both an interesting and a significant item 
that in 1786, just before leaving Congress, then meeting in 
New York — for the Congress of the Confederation was indeed 
a peripatetic body, about the only permanent features of it 
being Charles Thomson, secretary, and its own inability to 
solve its problems, — Monroe had married Eliza Kortwright of 
that city. She was then twenty- four years of age and ten 
years younger than himself. Her father had been pretty 
nearly ruined by the war; but her mother was a sister of that 
Henry Knox, who, born in Boston, early a bookseller, became 
the best engineer and artillery commander in the Revolu- 
tionary Army, was made major-general after Yorktown, and 
was Secretary of War under Washington until this very year 
1794 when he resigned. His niece, Mrs. James Monroe, was 
a very charming lady; and it is altogether within the proba- 
bilities that she kept her husband, for all his Anti-Federal 
activities in the personal favor of Washington, partly through 
her uncle, the General, and partly through her own social 
graces. James Monroe now took his wife and two daughters 
to France. His older daughter attended the school of Madame 
Campau, sister of Genet, and had as a schoolmate Hortense 
Beauharnais, step-daughter of Napoleon. The two continued 
life-long friends; and their friendship had its bearing upon 
future events. 

The French Mission. — Monroe made friends easily, per- 
haps too easily. The first French mission was to show this. 

James Monroe arrived in Paris just after the fall of Robes- 
pierre. August 15, 1794, he read before the French Conven- 



JAMES MONROE ^93 

tion an address in English, and a French translation was at 
once read by a secretary. It contained the highly improper 
statement that he meant to "merit the approbation of both 
republics," — in short, he made the cause of France as much 
his own as that of the country whose representative he was. 
The journal of the day recites that his gushing address was 
"heard with the liveliest sensibility and covered with ap- 
plause." Moreover, the flag of the United States was 
promptly set side by side with that of France "in sign of the 
union and eternal fraternity of the two peoples." 

Interesting Performances. — Not only Minister Monroe 
but also Commodore Barney of the United States Navy was 
received by the President of the Convention de Douai publicly, 
with the fraternal embrace of French revolutonary citizens. 
Shortly afterwards Monroe, with his suite, alone of persons 
not members of the Convention, was allowed to enter the 
Pantheon when the remains of Jean Jacques Rousseau were 
deposited therein. 

It is needless to add that Edmund Randolph, Secretary of 
State, though a French sympathizer, read Monroe's account 
of these affairs with astonishment and consternation; he ad- 
vised the minister to "cultivate the French Republic with zeal 
but without unnecessary eclat," and to avoid notoriety lest 
England be made furious. 

Monroe had many difficulties. One was to get LaFayette 
out of imprisonment in Germany, and Thomas Paine from 
confinement in the Luxembourg itself. 

The Jay Treaty with Great Britain. — December 2'j, 
1794, the storm broke. "The Citizen de Douai" on behalf of 
the Committee of Public Safety, objected to the Jay treaty 
with England. The committee wrote, "There ought not to 
subsist between two free peoples the dissimulation of courts." 
Monroe himself denounced the treaty as "the most shameful 
transaction of the kind I have ever known." The Directory 
considered the French alliance with the United States broken. 
Randolph resigned, and Pickering became Secretary of State 
in 1795 ; and late in 1796 Monroe was superseded by Charles 
Cotesworth Pinckney, whom the Directory promptly ordered 
out of Paris. Monroe stayed abroad until the next spring, 
trying to sell a house in Paris that he had bought (finally 
sacrificing it at half its cost), and cultivating friendly rela- 



294 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

tions with great persons. When he returned, he was given a 
banquet in Philadelphia. He refrained from visiting George 
Washington, though he visited Alexandria; and he set about 
publishing a five hundred page paper-bound book explaining 
his course in Paris in terms by no means friendly to the Presi- 
dent who had sent him on the mission. A war of partisans 
followed in pamphlets, newspapers and private letters. 

American Public Opinion. — James Monroe truthfully 
represented overwhelming American public sentiment; but 
he violated diplomatic propriety and the policy of the Ad- 
ministration that dispatched him to France. Public opinion 
and government were at outs ; and Monroe fell. 

One of Monroe's American supporters in Paris wrote from 
there: "I would so paint Mr. Washington on his milk-white 
steed, receiving the incense of all the little girls on Trenton 
Bridge, and then I would march him about in the streets of 
Boston so like a roasted ox that I once saw carried a whole 
day in triumph by the people of that famous town, that the 
automaton chief should groan and sweat under the weight of 
those laurels which are momently dropping from his brows 
into the sink and mire of his puny and anti-republican admin- 
istration." 

Governor of Virginia. — Two years later, Monroe became 
Governor of Virginia — by vote of the Legislature, as the sys- 
tem then was. In his term, he had to put down slave insur- 
rection, the early reports greatly exaggerating its real extent. 
He served for three years, when President Jefferson sent him 
back to Paris as minister on the great business of purchasing 
Louisiana from Napoleon, First Consul and now, though but 
thirty-five years of age, despot of France. 

The Louisiana Purchase. — It was a transaction that was 
Jefferson's own, and yet great enough to spare honor to the 
two Americans who accomplished it, R. R. Livingston and 
Monroe. For one and a quarter million square miles of land, 
they paid fifteen millions of dollars, about twelve dollars per 
square mile, or twenty cents an acre. The motives of Napo- 
leon in selling it were two: First, he needed money for the 
war with England and, second, he desired to bind America in 
renewed gratitude to France. The deal was put through for 
France mainly by Barbe Marbois, minister of Napoleon, to 
whom with his characteristic generosity he paid $46,000 for 



JAMES MONROE 295 

negotiating the business. There was nothing unusual in this, 
— Napoleon paid several of his marshals annual salaries of a 
million dollars each ; he was a business man. 

In all his reign, he never borrowed a sou upon national credit, 
but financed his affairs, including his mighty campaigns, solely 
by home taxation and by plunder of the defeated. He was the 
agent of the new commercial classes of France who rose out 
of the ruin of the noblesse. 

Napoleon Bonaparte. — Adventurer facile princeps in 
history. Napoleon left perhaps the greatest of all his monu- 
ments in the New World. No Bourbon king would have sold 
Louisiana to this Republic. The "man of destiny" strides into 
American history as of all Europeans our greatest benefactor. 
God makes even instruments of wrath to praise Him. 

From Paris, Monroe proceeded to Madrid, hoping to ac- 
quire Florida from Spain, but accomplished nothing. He then 
proceeded to London, to try with William Pinckney to make a 
favorable treaty with the British Government. Jefferson de- 
clined to submit the treaty to the Senate, and Monroe came 
home late in 1807. 

Member again of the Virginia Assembly. — In 1810 
Monroe began again at the foot of the political ladder as a 
member of the Virginia Assembly. Next year, he was again 
elected Governor, though serving but a few months when 
James Madison, who had become President in 1809, called him 
into the Cabinet as Secretary of State. 

Secretary of State. — To him is generally credited the 
coup by which Madison, who was conciliatory, was forced to 
defy England. If Jefferson had made Monroe instead of 
Madison his Secretary of State, war would have been declared 
in 1806 or 1807 instead of in 1812, and if he had made Mon- 
roe instead of Madison his heir in 1809, war would have been 
declared then. For the provocations to war were not greater 
in 1 81 2 than in any of half a dozen years preceding. We lost 
in those six years, thousands of seamen who were impressed, 
other thousands of seamen whose ships, depleted by the im- 
pressment of men from their crews, went down in storms, 
and, at a low estimate, a hundred million dollars worth of 
ships and mechandise. Only peace-at-any-price men would 
say that these lives might not better have been lost, these 
millions spent in war than in the welter of the rages of Eng- 



296 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

land against Napoleon and of Napoleon against all hereditary- 
thrones, himself trying to make a new dynasty. But, of 
course. Christians are peace-at-any-price-men being disciples of 
Him who said, "Put up thy sword" and "Resist not evil" and 
"Let him have thy cloke also." 

The War of 1812. — The war, though postponed, came, and 
dragged along for two years. Then Monroe was made Sec- 
retary of War as well as of State; and our affairs began to 
look up, though Washington was raided, sacked and burned 
even after the more vigorous policy was instituted. Late in 
1814, the treaty of Ghent was signed, and news reached here 
about the same time that the story of the victory of Jackson 
at New Orleans sped across the Appalachians. Peace-at-any- 
price would have been wiser than such a war. 

President. — Many things conspired to make Monroe the 
fourth President of the United States. As Secretary of War, 
he had taken the field near Washington and had seen battle, 
thereby renewing the tales of his prowess in the Revolutionary 
War. Jefferson had been Secretary of State for Washington, 
and Madison for Jefferson. Why should not the mantle of 
the Presidency again be thrown upon the Secretary of State? 
Moreover, Jefferson had virtually promised Monroe, eight 
years before, that he would succeed Madison. Lastly, Monroe 
was immensely popular because of his sympathies with France 
and of his part in the purchase of Louisiana. He was elected 
by 183 votes to 34 for Rufus King, Federalist, successively of 
Maine, Massachusetts and New York. 

King had a fine record, including eight years as minister to 
England, — 1796- 1804. This overwhelming defeat did not end 
his career, for he served from 181 3 to 1825 as Senator from 
New York, though the Legislature that elected him was Demo- 
cratic and he a surviving lonely Federalist. He had been all 
his life a constant opponent of slavery. 

Monroe Tours the Country. — ^Washington knew all parts 
of the United States above the Rappahannock. Jefferson had 
been a considerable traveller. And now Monroe undertook 
two great tours, — ^first, north from Boston to Detroit, then 
south from Atlanta to Nashville, making new friends every- 
where. The country was prosperous, and the government 
began to consider internal improvements at the general 
expense, whether really constitutional or not. 



JAMES MONROE 297 

The Florida Purchase. — In 1819, after many years of 
negotiations, we purchased Florida of Spain, — that is, we say 
that we did. The cost was five millions, — ^paid as claims to 
our own citizens. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, 
pounded the transaction through. It is a long and painful 
story. Expansion was American manifest destiny, and we 
crowded Spain out. She had revolutionary wars in all her 
South American possessions and had been impoverished by 
the Napoleonic wars and by her own extravagance. Easy 
gold for centuries from the New World and a vast empire in 
Europe for centuries had made her too weak to withstand 
American audacity and persistence. Her unearned New 
World revenues had been in value sixty billions of dollars. 

The Missouri Compromise. — In 1820 came the Missouri 
Compromise over slavery in the territories. It was a subject 
to which Monroe gave no great and serious attention. Not 
yet did anyone in high authority or of great influence reply 
to the slaveholders' threat, "If you don't give us this and that, 
we'll get out," "You cannot depart unless you defeat the rest 
of us on the field of battle." Every State in turn talked 
secession. It was the standard "last threat," corresponding 
with that of the fifteen-year-old boy who is getting ready to 
leave home and who says to his father : "If you will not let 
me do this or something else, I'll leave and go to work for 
myself." And like the judicious natural father, the other 
States simply smiled and said nothing until sunshine came 
again. 

For forty years more, the fatal compromise of the Consti- 
tution by which every white man in the South voted for him- 
self and for a part of a negro gave the slaveholders an immoral 
primacy in Congress. No man of political prominence and 
power, North or South, yet saw the point; just as to this day, 
no such man sees that in American only localities but not classes 
are represented in Congress. An entire sex is not represented. 
Farmers, day-laborers, mechanics or clerks are scarcely repre- 
sented in Congress by class-leaders. Four-fifths are lawyers. 
Twenty have "union cards." 

By effecting the Compromise of 1820, the youthful Clay 
became a figure of national moment. 

In return for the political primacy this effected, the leaders 
of the South not altogether cheerfully allowed Northern manu- 



298 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

facturers, who had taken the place in industrial leadership for- 
merly occupied by the merchants and shipowners, and other 
capitalists increase their fortunes by protective tariffs that 
robbed Southern consumers as well as Northern. 

Monroe Re-elected President with Virtual Unanim- 
ity. — President Monroe had been officially congratulating the 
wealthy upon the fall in the price of labor, and now, in an 
age when the poor were still illiterate and voteless, was re- 
elected with virtual unanimity. Never was education in 
America at so low an ebb as in this "era of good feeling" 
among the politically privileged. Yet it was not in protest 
against the wrongs of the weaker that a Maryland elector 
voted for John Quincy Adams, but, so tradition reports, be- 
cause he desired no other man to share the honor of unanimous 
election with George Washington. Perhaps, the fact that 
Mrs. Adams was a Maryland woman influenced his choice of 
the man for whom he voted. 

The Monroe Doctrine. — It was in his second term that 
President Monroe announced the foreign policy of the United 
States so completely and so succinctly that all the world lis- 
tened and that no later President has been obliged to seek to 
express it more adequately. "The Monroe Doctrine" is the 
title-deed of James Monroe to enduring fame. We find it in 
the annual message transmitted to Congress December 2, 1823. 

The occasion of this deliverance was to arrange with the 
Emperor of Russia regarding the occupation of Alaska. The 
United States was upon friendly terms with Russia. John 
Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, had been minister to Russia 
from 1809 to 1 81 3, nearly four and a half years, and he knew 
the Court and the people well. There is good reason to suppose 
that the language of "The Monroe Doctrine" is the language 
of Adams, not considerably revised by the President or by the 
other Secretaries of the Cabinet. 

The European Situation. — The causes of the deliverance 
were numerous. There were domestic troubles in Spain and 
in Portugal consequent in part upon the successful outcome 
of the rebellions of their South American colonies. By the 
usual methods of monarchs, the Holy Alliance had set out to 
pacify these social disturbances in Spain and in Portugal. To 
the emperors and kings who had put Bonaparte out of the 
business of emperorship and of king-making, republics any- 



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JAMES MONROE 299 

where were obnoxious. President Monroe had good reason 
to know that Russia, Austria, Prussia, England, France, Spain 
and Portugal would be glad to divide up the New World, — 
perhaps take back the Louisiana Territory, and even conquer 
the United States again for the British Crown. He did not 
propose to have the New World reabsorbed wholesale or 
retail. And he knew that all American past tradition and 
present sentiment would vigorously support him. Even before 
the Constitution was adopted, the principle had been sug- 
gested. On January i, 1788, Washington wrote to Jefferson 
that this country must not involve itself "in the political dis- 
putes of European powers." In the first notes for "The 
Farewell Address" as submitted to Hamilton for literary de- 
velopment, he expressed a hope that the nation in "twenty 
years" would be strong enough in population and riches to 
bid "defiance in a just cause to any earthly power whatso- 
ever," In his second annual message, President Adams noted 
a spirit in America to resist "the menaces and aggressions" of 
foreign nations. 

Historical Support. — ^Jefferson wrote to a private citizen 
that "the object . . . must be to exclude all European influ- 
ence in this hemisphere." The notion occurs again and again 
in his correspondence. October 24, 1823, he wrote to Monroe : 
"Our first and fundamental maxim should be, — never to en- 
tangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second, — never 
to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs." 
He abandoned the Old World to its "despotism" and declared 
"our endeavor should surely be to make our hemisphere that 
of freedom." 

Said Monroe: "The American continent, by the free and 
independent conditions they have assumed and maintain, are 
henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future coloni- 
zation by any European powers. . . . We owe it, there- 
fore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between 
the United States and those powers to declare that we should 
consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to 
any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and 
safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any 
European power, we have not interfered, and shall not Inter- 
fere. But with the governments who have declared their 
independence and maintained it, and whose independence we 



30O LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowl- 
edged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of 
oppressing them, or controlling in any manner their destiny 
by any European power in any other light than as the mani- 
festation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United 
States. . . . Our policy in regard to Europe, which was 
adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agi- 
tated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, 
which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of 
its powers ; to consider the government de facto as the legiti- 
mate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with 
it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm and manly 
policy; meeting, in all instances, the just claims of every 
power; submitting to injuries from none." For the rest, he 
warned Spain and all Europe off these continents; "she can 
never subdue them." 

Opinions of Daniel Webster. — Two years later Daniel 
Webster came to the support of the Doctrine with his stream- 
ing eloquence, — "I look upon the message of December, 1823, 
as forming a bright page in our history. I will help neither 
to erase it nor tear it out ; nor shall it be by any act of mine 
blurred or blotted. It did honor to the sagacity of the gov- 
ernment"; and more to that effect. A discussion had arisen 
as to the sending of a delegation now to a Pan-American 
Congress at Panama. The South American States had abol- 
ished slavery. The negro republic of Hayti would send 
negroes as delegates. And the slaveholding Southerners were 
opposed to our recognition of the congress. We finally sent 
delegates, who arrived too late. 

LaFayette Revisits America. — From the summer of 
1824 till that of 1825, at the suggestion of Jefferson, Marquis 
de LaFayette made his triumphal tour of America. He laid 
the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument, when Daniel 
Webster pronounced the oration. He visited every State and 
saw all the survivors of the Revolutionary War. Congress 
voted to him $200,000 and 23,000 acres in Florida, and sent 
him home in the new frigate "Brandywine," so named in 
honor of that drawn battle in which he had fought with gal- 
lantry. By 1825, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du 
Motier Marquis de LaFayette was an international institu- 
tion, even though years ago Napoleon had called him "ridic- 



JAMES MONROE 301 

ulous." But that monstrous man was then four years dead; 
of heirs to-day, he has none. As for LaFayette, it is pleasant 
to add that though he left a very youthful bride to come to 
America, they managed not only to live out long lives but to 
rear a family of valiant and useful sons. History has strange 
revenges. While in America, knowing how poor in purse 
Monroe was, LaFayette, in true Latin style, offered to share 
his purse with him. He made the same offer to Jefferson and 
doubtless to others. 

His Cabinet. — ^The Cabinet membership was as follows, 
viz. : 

State, — John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts. 

Treasury, — William H. Crawford of Georgia. 

War, — Isaac Shelby of Kentucky- (brief term), John C. 
Calhoun of South Carolina (nearly eight years). 

Attorney-General, — Richard Rush of Pennsylvania (brief 
term), William Wirt of Virginia (nearly eight years). 

Postmaster-General, — Return J. Meigs, Jr., of Ohio (six 
years), John McLean of Ohio (two years). 

Navy, — B. W. Crowninshield of Massachusetts (one year). 
Smith Thompson of New York (five years), Samuel L. 
Southard of New Jersey (three years). 

In Old Age. — On the whole, Monroe had pleasant memo- 
ries for his few declining years. Both of his daughters 
were well married in New York. There he spent most of 
his time, occasionally visiting Oak Hill in Virginia. 

With both Jefferson and Madison, Monroe served as regent 
of the University of Virginia, and was a member of the con- 
vention to revise the State Constitution. In 1830, his wife 
died. His money troubles kept him worried as similar troubles 
had worried his patron Thomas Jefferson. Perhaps, the loss 
of his life-partner and these money-troubles hastened his 
death on July 4, 1831, at seventy-three years of age, just 
four years to a day after the passing of Jefferson and John 
Adams. In his old age, at one time, he was so poor that he 
peddled books from house to house. Madison lived to be 
twelve years older than Monroe and outlived him five years. 

The end came to John Adams, to Monroe and to Madison 
with no apparent physical ailment. It was due to the anemia 
and debility of old age. 

Personal Characteristics. — In person, James Monroe 



302 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

was not much under six feet in height, raw-boned, strong, un- 
attractive and awkward. His manners were less severe than 
those of Madison and John Adams; but he had less of per- 
sonal charm than had Thomas Jefferson. He was not the 
equal in scholarship of these three predecessors. His moral 
character was irreproachable. Unlike all his predecessors, he 
was singularly unselfish and unself -regarding. He had the 
physical bravery of Washington and almost the moral bravery 
of John Adams. He was a constantly growing man, and as 
the years pass, his reputation grows. He was a better Presi- 
dent than we have usually had. 

Supreme Court Makes Itself Supreme. — It was in this 
"era of good feeling" that the Supreme Court decided that it 
could declare a State law null and void for conflict with the 
Federal Constitution (McCulloch v. Maryland). This was 
the triumph, the climax of Federalism and gave to John Mar- 
shall, Chief Justice, enduring fame. Likewise, it entrenched 
the vanguard of the coming plutocracy in the citadel of the 
central government. 

Theoretically, we are in every respect a government of lim- 
ited powers. No branch is supreme, no officer of government 
can do as he pleases. But practically Presidents can do what 
they please unless a statute or court decision forbids; and 
practically the Supreme Court can annul whatever it sees fit. 
And Congress, which is supposed in the Senate to represent 
the will of the States and in the House of Representatives to 
represent the will of the people (such is the meaning of the 
name itself), alone is both theoretically and practically subor- 
dinate. Armies march when Presidents say so ; Polk marched 
an army to Texas and Mexico and fought. Taft likewise, 
but didn't fight. Congress ordered neither to do so. There 
are other impressive historic instances. Lincoln defended 
Sumter and fought the first Bull Run without orders; and 
Roosevelt took Panama and sent the fleet around the world. 
Jefferson bought Louisiana. In a sense, the Presidency is 
unlimited. 

Fourteen hundred judicial cases serve to interpret the Con- 
stitution. Declarations by the Supreme Court that a law is 
null and void are often delayed by decades; we may yet live 
to see protective tariffs held unconstitutional. This would be 
no greater an exhibition of power than was the overthrow 



JAMES MONROE 303 

of the Missouri Compromise by the Dred Scott decision. The 
first case was indeed but a Httle mustard seed ; to-day a mighty 
tree of judicial power thrives upon the soil of our Constitu- 
tion. Certainly, the Fathers foresaw nothing of this kind. 

Sectionalism in the Admission of States. — In this same 
period, five States were admitted. In Washington's time, the 
admissions were of two Southern States, containing 82,000 
square miles and of one Northern State containing 9500 square 
miles. On the same scale, the South should have made eight 
or nine States out of Kentucky and Tennessee, so as to keep 
proportionate strength in the Senate. In 1802 Ohio came in 
alone. Louisiana and Indiana were admitted four years apart 
in 1 81 2 and in 181 6. But now Illinois and Maine with 90,000 
square miles were supposed to balance Mississippi, Alabama, 
and Missouri with 171,000 square miles. Thereafter the 
principle was fully recognized that there must be some balance. 
But the South was already defeated, for in the Senate New 
England, virtually a province, had twelve members with 
65,000 square miles, whereas Virginia with 67,000 square 
miles had but two. The South had no very small State. Even 
Maryland, with but 12,000 square miles, was larger than 
either New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode 
Island, Connecticut, or New Jersey. 

It was this condition in the Senate that gave to the wage- 
service North and to its really subsidized hothouse protected 
manufacturers its victory over the South. A section with 
small States and many Senators built itself up at the cost of 
the ultimate consumers in the section with large States. The 
statement that the North had the population is no answer. 
The laws caused the population. Originally, and naturally, 
the Northeast is far less habitable than the Sunny South. 

Monroe a True Democrat at Heart. — ^To offset the 
centralization of government manifested by the Supreme 
Court, President Monroe vetoed "internal improvements" in 
the form of the Cumberland or National Road. Rather than let 
the court decide upon its constitutionality, he denounced it; 
but then on the last day of his second term, in the interest of 
political peace, he signed a still more liberal appropriation bill 
for the same purpose. And for all his strict construction views, 
James Monroe signed In 1824 the first truly protective tariff 
measure. The explanation of these actions Is that Monroe 



304 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

was a democrat at heart, and desired to give to the people 
what the people really wished to have. And unlike such a 
hortatory Democrat as Thomas Jefferson, he did not spend 
much time or energy in trying to teach the people to like his 
own pet notions and measures. In this sense, he was a poli- 
tician. And it is as a successful and honest politician and not 
as a consistent statesman that James Monroe comes down to 
us from the early days of the Presidency. 



CHAPTER VI 

John Quincy Adams 

1825-1829 } 

1767-1848 

24 States Population 11,000,000 

The Adams family — early life — visited France — his "Diary" — diplomatic 
Secretary in Russia — educated at Harvard — many great men his 
friends — lawyer — in London — married a Maryland girl — minister to 
Prussia — State Senator — proposed minority representation — ^United 
States Senator — desired war against England — left Federalist party — 
minister to Russia — peace commisioner — Secretary of State — so-called 
"purchase" of Florida — report on weights and measures — the true 
history of Americanism — suppression of the slave-trade — a diplomatist 
of the highest rank — the unseemly struggle for the Presidency — ^his 
rivals — gave ball in honor of General Andrew Jackson — changing to 
popular election of the Electors in the Electoral College — Adams 
won in the House of Representatives — the terrible charge of John 
Randolph against Adams and Clay — internal improvements — "Tariff of 
Abominations" — Whigs — Jackson elected — sectionalism — upright but 
self-righteous — member of House of Representatives — "the old man 
eloquent" — the right of petition — hot temper, cool head — favored pro- 
tective tariff — petition from slaves — petition to dissolve the Union — 
pulled House through a deadlock — victory — died in the Capitol. 

The Adams Family. — Massachusetts has given two Presi- 
dents to the nation; and several other Presidents had fathers 
or mothers or other ancestors born and reared within her 
borders. She gave to us two men of the Adams family, — 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 305 

John the second President, and his son John Quincy Adams, 
an abler man than his father. She gave to us also Charles 
Francis Adams, grandson and son of these two, to do the 
work of a statesman-diplomat in England during the Civil 
War. It is a family of hereditary talents of the highest 
order. In American history, only the family of Jonathan 
Edwards and that of Lyman Beecher may fairly challenge 
comparison with the Adams line. 

It may indeed be that John Quincy would never have been 
President but for his father John Adams; but if so, it is so 
for only one reason, — the blood and rearing given to him by 
John Adams, his father, and Abigail Smith Adams, his 
mother, for John Adams as ex-President was sufficiently 
hated to make the Adams name itself a heavy handicap. Later, 
and beyond doubt wiser, generations think dififerently of John 
Adams from the people of 1825, among whom John Quincy 
Adams found himself, by a conspiracy of circumstances, ele- 
vated to the place of first citizen of the land. Yet this son, 
though often wrong, deserved the Presidency, and his memory 
is that of one of our ablest and most valuable statesmen who 
was no politician at all; wherein he ranks with Washington, 
with his own father, with James Madison, and with few 
others, whom an admiring country or constituency has ele- 
vated to high office. 

Early Life. — The sixth President of the people of the 
United States was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Massa- 
chusetts, July II, 1767. His father was then a struggling 
young lawyer in a small town, who had not yet wholly given 
his heart to the patriot cause. John Quincy passed his early 
childhood there and in Boston. In June, 1775, from a hilltop 
in Braintree, the boy, holding his mother's hand, saw, ten 
miles away, Charleston afire and heard the artillery and 
musketry of the battle of Bunker Hill. They were a lonely 
and worried little family, with the husband and father away 
at Philadelphia in the Continental Congress. Any midnight 
or noon, Braintree might suffer a British raid and witness 
upon its green another minute men fight. 

But the British sailed away with thousands of Loyalists to 
Halifax, and then little John Quincy was often put on horse- 
back to ride ten miles to Boston to get the latest news, for 



3o6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Mrs. Abigail Adams, though a fond mother, was not a timid 
one and meant to make a man out of her son. 

The Boy Goes to Europe. — In February, 1778, the boy 
sailed with his father in the frigate "Boston" bound for 
France; and in the course of a half-year crossed the ocean 
three times, landing in Spain upon the second voyage east- 
ward. In this same eventful period, he began that diary 
which was to grow and grow until it became the greatest diary 
ever written, a veritable book of doom for all and sundry of 
his contemporaries. Closely edited and much reduced, it 
makes a dozen octavo volumes, and is the best source history 
of its period. Then also he began writing those now quaint 
"old-fashioned" verses which reveal his finer and more charm- 
ing qualities. 

Educated at Harvard. — The boy travelled much and 
studied a little until at fourteen years of age Francis Dana, 
American envoy to Russia, took him to St. Petersburg as his 
secretary. He came back in 1782 and was immediately secre- 
tary in the negotiations for the treaty of Ghent. When, in 
1785, his father was made minister to England, John Quincy 
Adams stood at his first cross-roads of choice in life; he had 
travelled much, had seen many events and men, had learned 
French, had read many books, had already played a man's part 
in affairs. He might have become at once a member of the 
American diplomatic corps ; instead, being a sensible youth and 
a sound Puritan, he took ship for America and entered Har- 
vard College in the fashion of all the Adamses. In 1787, at 
twenty years of age, he took his bachelor's degree. Then for 
three years, he studied law in the office of Theophilus Parsons 
at Newberry port. 

Practices Law. — Both Dana and Parsons were afterwards 
Chief Justices of Massachusetts as was his own father. J. Q. 
Adams had come to know John Jay, later Chief Justice of 
New York; and the immortal Benjamin Franklin; and many 
others of fame and rank, including some of the first states- 
men of nearly every important European nation. Such was 
the man who at twenty-three years of age in 1790, — his own 
father being Vice-President, — hung out his shingle in Boston 
and waited for clients. Few men, dying at the allotted term, 
have ever seen as much of human life as John Quincy Adams 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 307 

had seen as early as 1790. Naturally, he was restless and 
eager. Being an Adams, inevitably, he was censorious and 
industrious, and painfully reliable. Clients came. He began 
to make money. But he spent his leisure replying in print to 
the "Rights of Man" of Thomas Paine and to the fulmina- 
tions of Citizen Genet. 

Diplomat Abroad. — President Washington read these 
replies, and in 1794 appointed him Minister to Holland. So 
well did his demeanor there impress Washington that he 
prophesied of the young man, — "He will be found soon at 
the head of the diplomatic corps, be the government admin- 
istered by whomsoever the people may choose." Incidentally, 
J. Q. Adams had to go to London again. 

Marries a Southern Lady. — There he met the daughter 
of the American consul, niece of Governor Johnson of Mary- 
land, signer of the Declaration and later Supreme Court 
Justice, — Louise Catherine Johnson, whom he married in 
July, 1797. It was a happy union. If John Quincy Adams 
had been less self-centered, he would have seen how from 
year to year he was spared those domestic afflictions which 
account for so much in the lives of such men as Samuel 
Adams, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson. But no 
Adams was ever grateful. No Adams was ever treated by 
God or fate or his fellowmen as well as he deserved. In the 
case of John Quincy himself, the greatest of them all, and the 
worst complainant, the diary proves this. 

Next, Washington persuaded John Adams, when Presi- 
dent, to transfer J. Q. Adams to Prussia, whither he went in 
November, 1797. There he negotiated a treaty of commerce 
between Prussia and the United States. He was recalled late 
in 1800 by his father so that President Jefferson, his hated 
rival, might not be allowed to recall an Adams from the diplo- 
matic service. 

Rises to United States Senate. — Once more, John 
Quincy Adams became a lawyer in private practice in Boston, 
In some way, he contrived to be appointed a commissioner in 
bankruptcy, when President Jefferson promptly removed him. 
But the brilliant publicist was not long to hide his light under 
a bushel; In April, 1802, he was elected State Senator. Two 
days after taking his seat, he proposed the startling Innovation 
of proportional representation of the minority In the Gover- 



3o8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

nor's Council. In February, 1803, by a vote of 86 to 65, he 
was elected United States Senator, defeating Timothy Pick- 
ering, a fact that had important bearings upon the future 
happiness of the victor. This split the Federalist party 
definitely, — ^J. Q. Adams was, of course, an Adams Federalist, 
while Pickering was a Hamilton Federalist. 

The Democrats greatly outnumbered the Federalists in Con- 
gress ; and the Hamiltonians greatly outnumbered the Adams' 
sympathizers in the Federalist party. Adams began as a 
United States Senator with but few friends; and his course 
alienated even these few. The rest of the Senators either 
despised or hated him ; but month by month those who despised 
him grew fewer and those who hated him grew more numer- 
ous. He was terribly in earnest, and he cared for nothing 
save what he thought the rights of a matter. No man and 
no interest could influence him, for there was no way to reach 
him. He was that terrible creature, an able man, disinterested, 
without a friend, and set on righteousness, — a lonely fate. 
Only a few weeks later, Pickering came to take the other 
Senatorship. 

Adams voted to sustain the purchase of Louisiana, though 
he denied that the purchase was constitutional. The partisan 
Federalist voted not to confirm the purchase. He voted to 
acquit Justice Chase who had been impeached by the Jeffer- 
sonians for Federalist utterances from the bench; he always 
voted to sustain the power of the judiciary. In 1806, he intro- 
duced resolutions against European violations of American 
neutrality. He voted against the Federalists and in favor of 
the Non-Importation Act. In May, 1806, the British govern- 
ment issued a proclamation declaring all Europe from Brest to 
the Elbe in a state of blockade. In November, Napoleon 
answered with a decree declaring all the British Isles in a 
state of blockade. In January, 1807, the British government 
forbade neutrals to trade between the ports of its enemies. And, 
in November, it declared all neutral vessels and cargoes liable 
to capture and to confiscation ; a few days later, it fixed a rate 
of duties upon neutrals. In December, Napoleon answered by 
another decree, denouncing any ships that paid the tax as sub- 
ject to capture and confiscation. 

Promotes the War-Spirit. — It was a war of paper 
decrees, more or less enforced. England and France played 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 309 

battle dove and shuttlecock with American shipping, John 
Quincy Adams shrewdly said that virtually both nations had 
declared war upon the United States. In June, 1807, the 
British frigate, "The Leopard," fifty-guns, took four seamen 
off from "The Chesapeake" near Hampton Roads. Three 
Americans were killed in the action. The British hanged one 
of the seamen ; one died in confinement, two were returned to 
"The Chesapeake" in 1812 at Boston. 

Here was a casus belli adequate for any President and 
Congress of patriotic vigor. Jefferson did nothing. New 
England was Federalist and in a true sense Anglican; but 
New England was also commercial, and her commerce was 
being strangled, and her people were in distress. The five 
States had come to the parting of the ways ; and it was natural 
that their leader, Massachusetts, should have in Congress a 
Senator who should be the first to discern the fact. 

Leaves Federalist Party. — The outrage upon "The Chesa- 
peake" occurred in a recess of Congress, and Senator Adams 
tried to organize a meeting of Federalists to protest. They 
were too devoted to England or too afraid of her power or 
both to accept his urgent leadership. The Democrats held a 
meeting ; and Adams not only attended but was made a mem- 
ber of the committee to draft warlike resolutions. Then the 
Federalists, who controlled Boston, called a town meeting, 
and Adams was again put on a committee to protest. But the 
wedge had been driven in ; and Senator Adams was no longer 
considered a good party man. When in October, 1807, he 
voted for the embargo, Federalism rejected Adams forever. 
He became an apostate. They carried it into his social rela- 
tions. And to this day, the Adams family in Massachusetts 
is on the defensive because John Quincy Adams became in 
effect a Jeffersonian. Boston Brahminism knew nothing 
worse than this treachery of Adams to the sacred cause of 
outworn Federalism. 

The term of Senator Adams would expire in March, 1809; 
but the Federalists made hot haste to teach him a lesson. 
In June, they elected James Lloyd, Jr., his successor by 21 to 
17 in the Senate; by 248 to 213 in the House. A total vote 
of 18 changed would have endorsed the course of Adams. 
On June 8, he resigned, and Lloyd was appointed to fill the 
rest of his term. The son of John Adams had lost the United 



3IO LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

States Senatorship because he supported the administration of 
Thomas Jefferson, his hated and successful rival. 

Minister to Russia. — His friend Josiah Quincy, Congress- 
man, immediately offered to resign so that Adams might take 
his place as a representative; but the latter refused to permit 
this. And now came yet worse. In March 6, 1809, two days 
after he became President, James Madison named Adams as 
minister to Russia. Judas had taken his thirty pieces of silver ! 
By 17 to 15, the Senate voted not to send a minister to Russia; 
Timothy Pickering was one of the 17. But Madison per- 
sisted; and in June Adams was confirmed by 19 to 7, of which 
7 Pickering was one. 

He remained in Russia until early in 18 14 he became one 
of the three commissioners of the five American commissioners 
to treat for peace with England at Ghent. There ensued a 
quarrelsome and disagreeable experience that lasted a half 
year of daily negotiations. England looked upon the United 
States as the defeated country, and remembered the Revolu- 
tionary War. Henry Clay, who was one of the commissioners 
and who had instigated the disastrous land campaign against 
Canada, gambled all night with his friends and quarrelled 
pretty much all day with Adams. Clay cared only for the 
right of the United States to prevent the navigation of the 
Mississippi by the British, while Adams was trying to pro- 
tect the northeast fisheries in the interest of New England. 
Adams wished England to yield Canada, while Clay demanded 
a promise not to impress American sailors. 

Peace Commissioner. — Napoleon was in isolation upon 
Elba; but England was having trouble with the Emperor of 
Russia and with the King of Prussia. Perhaps, in the back 
of their minds, the Emperor and the King had formed a liking 
for America partly because they liked John Quincy Adams. 

At any rate, the Holy Alliance in effect intervened or inter- 
fered in 'such a manner that the British government suddenly 
became anxious for peace. The treaty is one of the most 
interesting of such documents. It said nothing about impress- 
ment or fisheries or Mississippi navigation. Virtually, it 
simply restored the status ante helium; but its outcome was 
wholly favorable to America. 

Secretary of State. — Becoming Minister to England, 
Adams remained in Europe. Then in 181 7, President James 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 311 

Monroe made him Secretary of State in his Cabinet of Demo- 
crats. All Americans knew that thereby he was named heir- 
apparent to the Presidency. Again, Judas had taken silver. 

So-called Purchase of Florida. — All the colonies in 
South America were in revolt against Spain, and the Euro- 
pean powers were disinclined to recognize them as belligerents. 
Henry Clay, leader in Congress, desired to force the hands 
of Madison and Adams, by a declaration in favor of the 
rebels. It was a splendid opportunity for the display of his 
fervent eloquence. There was another trouble, — with Spain 
regarding the boundaries of the Louisiana territory that she 
had ceded to France a few years before Jefferson bought it. 
It was a highly complex and a decidedly irritating situation. 
Not the least of the troubles were those provoked by the 
erratic General Andrew Jackson in Florida, which Spain still 
owned. The first treaty, negotiated with infinite pains and 
much skill by Adams with the Spanish minister Don Onis, 
was rejected by his own government. With all these inter- 
national disputes went also the question of the admission of 
Missouri as a State. 

His Views of Slavery. — Both the domestic and the inter- 
national debates turned mainly upon the changing slavery- 
situation. The Missouri question Adams called "the title-page 
to a tragic volume," foreseeing clearly what few others yet 
suspected. "Slavery," he wrote in his Diary, "is the great and 
foul stain upon the North American Union." At this stage, 
John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, predicted that if the 
Union should be dissolved, "the South from necessity would 
be compelled to form an alliance defensive and offensive with 
Great Britain." Adams saw clearly that "This is a question 
between the rights of human nature and the Constitution of the 
United States." But not even J. Q. Adams, certainly no one 
else, foresaw that a time would come when the Union could not 
be dissolved but seceding States could be retained by force. In all 
the United States in 1820, there was not one Nationalist who 
would resort to force. The year after, with but one change 
and that greatly in favor of the United States, — the cancelling 
of certain royal grants of land to Spanish nobles, — the treaty 
was ratified both by the King and Cortes and by Congress, — 
though Henry Clay was selfishly against it with his brother- 
in-law, Brown of Louisiana, and with three other votes in 



312 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

the Senate. By this treaty, the United States gained Florida 
and a part of Oregon to the Pacific Ocean, and a definite 
boundary along the Red and Arkansaw rivers, all in return 
for some $5,000,000 of claims of American citizens against 
Spain, which the United States assumed and then dishonestly 
disputed for many years. The purchase was a diplomatic 
victory, a raid on a sinking nation, a superb example of the 
progress of manifest destiny, the relentless on-going of the 
Anglo-Saxon to world-supremacy. It enhanced the prestige 
of John Quincy Adams in America as well as in Europe. And 
it forwarded several men toward the Presidency. 

On the day of the ratification of the treaty, February 22, 
1 82 1, — on anniversary of Washington's birthday, — Adams 
submitted to Congress a report that he considered equally 
important with the treaty. It was an effort to standardize 
weights and measures, and represented a vast labor for four 
years upon his part. No one paid any attention to it. 

The Monroe Doctrine. — Just how far Secretary Adams 
:ontributed to the Monroe Doctrine is historically an unim- 
'portant matter, though it is of biographical interest that he 
encouraged a by no means unwarlike President in a yet more 
warlike tone. He had no intention of seeing Spain and 
Portugal restored to full control in South America, with 
Russia holding all the Pacific Coast from Bering Strait to 
Lower California, France taking Mexico, and England add- 
ing Cuba to her vast dominion of Canada. 

Certainly, no other man ever had any clearer understanding 
of Americanism that J. Q. Adams, — ^his diplomacy proves it. 

The Slave-Trade. — There came up the interesting 
proposition that America should join the European powers in 
suppressing the slave trade. England, Spain, Portugal and 
The Netherlands suported it; Russia, Prussia, Austria and 
France opposed it. America refused even to consider it, — the 
Monroe Doctrine kept her out of Europe. America could not 
allow the right of search. But Adams put the matter cleverly : 
If England would agree never again in time of war to take 
a man from an American vessel, America would consider 
joining a concert of powers to suppress the slave-traffic. Of 
course, England declined. 

As A Diplomat. — In a conversation with Mr. Stratford 
Canning, the British minister, John Quincy Adams said to 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 313 

him, "Have you any claim to the mouth of the Columbia 
river? You claim India, you claim Africa, you claim — " "Per- 
haps," said Canning, "a piece of the moon." "No," answered 
Adams, "I have not heard that you claim exclusively any part 
of the moon ; but there is not a spot on this habitable globe that 
I could affirm you do not claim," 

His was the shirt-sleeve diplomacy of his own father and 
of some recent American statesmen, including President 
Cleveland. John Quincy Adams ranks among the first of 
American diplomats, with few peers and no superiors, one of 
the few peers being his own son Charles Francis Adams. 

An Unseemly Struggle for the Presidency. — In 1824 
the question of the succession to the Presidency came up. 
Washington, Jefferson and Madison had fixed firmly the two- 
term tradition. Monroe was ready to retire. The leading 
candidates were Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry 
Clay, and William H. Crawford. 

Jackson was the hero of New Orleans and the people's 
favorite. He was "the great Indian fighter" ; had been a judge 
in Tennessee, a Congressman, a Governor of Florida, and a 
Major-General ; and was now United States Senator. Of the 
same age as Adams, Jackson was his most formidable rival. 

Henry Clay of Kentucky was Speaker of the House of 
Representatives, a brilliant and moving orator, a gambler who 
made money by gambling, a "sport," a socially charming man, 
ten years the junior of his leading rivals. 

Crawford of Georgia was the first of American political 
manipulators upon a national scale. He had nervous prostra- 
tion from the summer of 1823 ; but for which state of health, 
lasting over a year, he might have been successful. He con- 
tinued to hold the position of Secretary of the Treasury, its 
documents, papers and checks being signed for him with a 
rubber stamp, a fact that illustrates the process of public busi- 
ness in 1823-4 and the easy-going character of James Monroe. 
Probably, Crawford needed the salary. 

Gives a Ball in Honor of Jackson. — ^They were all 
Democrats; and the election was a personal contest in which 
John Quincy Adams stood frigidly upon his personal self- 
respect and official dignity. On January 8, 1824, the ninth 
anniversary of the battle of New Orleans, Adams gave a ball 
in honor of Jackson; a thousand persons attended. It was 



314 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

said to be the finest affair of its kind to that date since the 
Capital was founded in 1800. 

The vote in the Electoral College stood: 

Jackson 99, Adams 84, Crawford 41, Clay '^^'j. 

New York and New England had voted for Adams; Penn- 
sylvania and its eastern and southern neighbors with Ten- 
nessee, for Jackson; Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri for Clay; 
and most of the rest for Crawford. The Legislatures still 
chose the electors in Vermont, New York, Delaware, South 
Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana; the people voted in Maine, 
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Caro- 
lina, Alabama, Mississippi, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mis- 
souri, Indiana, and Illinois. The popular movement was zig- 
zagging to success. Few delegations voted solidly. 

The fight now changed to the House of Representatives and 
became yet more bitter. The illness of Crawford and the 
hatred of Clay for Jackson determined the issue. 

The vote stood : 

Adams 13 States, Jackson 7, Crawford 4. 

But Calhoun had been chosen by the Electoral College as 
Vice-President by 182 to 79, divided among half a dozen 
candidates. 

An Unhappy Winner. — So grieved was John Quincy 
Adams, so aggrieved in fact, by this doubtful compliment that 
he would have declined to serve, but did not wish to see John 
C. Calhoun thereby succeed to the Presidency; and the Con- 
stitution provides no way to have a second election. This is 
not the only defect of a strangely overrated human device. 

His Cabinet and the Terrible Charge by John Ran- 
dolph. — For his Cabinet, Adams retained William Wirt of 
Virginia as Attorney-General, John McLean of Ohio as Post- 
master-General, and Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey as 
head of the Navy Department. He named James Barbour 
of Virginia for the War Department, Richard Rush of Penn- 
sylvania for the Treasury and Henry Clay of Kentucky for 
the State Department. Jackson promptly charged that Clay 
had sold out to Adams. In his "Diary," Adams wrote that 
probably two-thirds of the American people were opposed to 
him for the Presidency. 

Now the brilliant, reckless, mischief-making, vituperative 



JOHN OUINCY ADAMS 315 

John Randolph of Virginia stalks more prominently than 
ever upon the national scene, — charging a corrupt bargain 
between Clay and Adams. This struggle ended "King 
Caucus." The words of Randolph were "the coalition of 
Blifil and Black George — the combination unheard of till then 
of the Puritan and the black-leg." 

He cursed the parents of Clay for bringing into life "this 
being, so brilliant yet so corrupt, which like a rotten mackerel 
by moonlight, shined and stunk." Clay challenged him to a 
duel. Both fired : neither hit. Clay fired again, missed ; Ran- 
dolph fired into the air, strolled over to Clay, shook hands ; 
and honor was satisfied. One of Clay's shots had pierced the 
long flannel coat of John Randolph, 

Material Progress at Government Cost. — The Presi- 
dency of John Quincy Adams was not uneventful. In it, 
$14,000,000, — an amount larger than in all the years from 
1789 to 1825, — were spent without constitutional warrant 
upon internal improvements, one-third upon roads and canals. 
The Erie Canal was finished at the cost of New York State, 
lowering freight from Buffalo to New York from $88 per ton 
to $6, and not long afterwards to $3. Georgia successfully 
defied the United States by violating treaties with the Creeks 
and with the Cherokees. An attempt to hold a Pan-American 
Congress of the new nations at Panama was so much of a 
failure that it had separated before the American delegates 
arrived. A great number of commercial treaties were nego- 
tiated with other nations. In 1828 "the Tariff of Abomina- 
tions" was passed, so styled by a Maryland Senator, because 
of its high protection. All the South was against it. John 
Randolph denounced it as a bill to "rob and plunder nearly 
one-half of the Union for the benefit of the residue." A 
flood of emigrants poured westward by the National Road 
and by the Erie Canal. And the temperance reform grew 
into great proportions. 

Two Parties Again. — Out of all the personal rancor, 
hatreds and ambitions, two political parties emerged, — the 
National Republicans, soon to be known as Whigs, and the 
Democrats. The former were "broad constructionists," favor- 
ing internal improvements, protective tariffs, and the National 
* Bank. Adams, Clay, and Webster were the leaders. The 
latter were strict constructionists and State's rights men. Its 



3i6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

leaders were Calhoun, Randolph, and other Southerners. 
Jackson was himself a protectionist, but he gravitated to the 
Democrats inevitably from personal associations. 

Adams Defeated. — The result of the election of 1828 was 
a foregone conclusion. All the States except Delaware and 
South Carolina had changed to popular election of Electors. 
Jackson was immensely popular personally while Adams 
was unpopular. The electoral vote was : Jackson 1 78, Adams 
83 ; the popular vote was : Jackson 648,000, Adams 508,000. 
It was a sectional vote, — New England, New Jersey, and 
Delaware for Adams, Maryland split 6 to 5 for Adams, the 
rest for Jackson. In the campaign, most extraordinary lies 
were published broadcast. One was that Mrs. Adams was an 
English woman. This lie helped her husband in splitting 
Maryland, her native State ; but it hurt him in the South and 
West. Another lie was that his poor old father, who had 
died in 1826, had disinherited him. Still another was that he 
had grown rich in the public service. It was the first mud- 
slinging campaign in America; and one of the worst to this 
date. The bottom men were getting freedom to vote. 

A Mournful Old Man. — ^The old man of sixty-three 
years, John Quincy Adams, went home done out, broken- 
hearted. 

His life was all gone — for nothing except labor. He had 
tried to get Congress to build a naval academy to match West 
Point, founded in 1802. He had tried to secure an appro- 
priation for a national university. He had tried to keep the 
offices of government free from political partisanship. And 
he had failed, and for his failures had been punished by the 
vilest of libels and slanders. He knew his crime, — that he 
was what he was, — a perfectly upright statesman. His self- 
righteousness he did not see. 

This disgrace was the end. He must drag out his days in 
Quincy while an illiterate Indian fighter, a home-breaker, a 
smuggler of negroes, a lawless demagogue, stood in the place 
where a Harvard professor of literature — Adams had been a 
professor for two years, 1 805-1 807 — ^belonged by every right. 

His Total Mistake. — But angry, resentful John Quincy 
Adams had made a total mistake. He had his best days before 
him. He was to become "the old man eloquent" in the House 
of Representatives and to die on the field of its debateff. The 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 317 

Plymouth District asked him to run for Congress in Sep- 
tember, 1830; and elected him by a vote of 1817 to 373 for the 
next candidate, and to 748 for all other candidates. Unlike 
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, he was strongest 
at home. This success was balm to his many wounds. He 
had a fulcrum that would hold. That District returned him 
faithfully for nine terms. 

In the House of Representatives. — John Quincy Adams 
was to become a voice crying in the wilderness of national 
politics against slavery, which had grown so strong as to dare 
to stifle the inalienable English common law right of petition. 
He cried aloud in Congress for a dozen years until he was 
heard. It is a long, long, bitter, terrible history. Only two 
or three of its items may be set down here. 

He took his seat December, 1831, being then sixty- four 
years old, bald, short, rotund, his eyes red and rheumy, his 
voice shrill, his hands shaking like those of that other irre- 
pressible commoner, his third cousin, Sam Adams. He had 
come out from the Courts of Europe, down from the Presi- 
dency, in breaking age, to fight in the ruck of the House of 
Representatives and to be the bravest and ablest of all its 
fighters in an era of political revolution. He was a "char- 
acter," — hot temper, cool head, — warrior and scholar. He 
who had been so unpopular was to become the idol of growing 
millions of supporters in the North and West. He had paid 
the heavy price for sincerity and was now to get the reward — 
triumph and admiration. 

At first, Congressman Adams was allowed considerable lati- 
tude of effort : — he supported protection, opposed nullification, 
and urged dignified measures with foreign lands, especially 
France. But he had been bringing in petitions against slavery, 
and in the spring of 1836 Congress passed several resolutions, 
first, that it had no power to interfere with slavery in any 
State; second, that it should not interfere with slavery in the 
District of Columbia; and, third, that "all petitions, memo- 
rials, resolutions or papers relating in anyway or to any extent 
whatsoever to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, 
shall, without being printed or referred, be laid upon the table, 
and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon." 
Adams denounced the third resolution In these words: "I 
hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution 



3i8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

of the United States, the rules of this House, and the rights 
of my constituents." The vote stood 117 to 68 against him. 
He repeated the same phrases with every new Congress for 
years, sometimes adding "and of my right to freedom of 
speech as a member of this House." 

The Right of Petition in America. — And he kept right 
on presenting petitions, — sometimes three hundred petitions 
in a single day, in all thousands and tens of thousands. Occa- 
sionally, he brought in petitions not relating to slavery, which 
discomfited the enemy, who had to sift out those receivable 
from those not receivable. Once, he trapped them fairly, — 
he held up in his hand a petition from twenty-two slaves ! He 
said that perhaps it was not what it purported to be. "Expel 
him, expel him !" cried the members. Some threatened to dis- 
solve the Union and to go home at once. Waddy Thompson 
moved "a severe censure" for his "gross disrespect" in bring- 
ing in a petition from slaves, and talked of bringing him 
before the grand jury of the District of Columbia, which is 
Congress operating as a city council for the government of 
that satrapy. Another member proposed to stay "until this 
fair city is a field of Waterloo and this beautiful Potomac a 
river of blood." Adams let them rave until tired, when he 
called to their attention the fact that the twenty-two slaves 
had asked that slavery be not abolished! It was "an awful 
crisis," according to one Southern orator in the House. After 
several days of terror and wrath had passed, the House re- 
solved that slaves had no right of petition, whether for or 
against slavery or anything else. 

In 1842, he presented a petition to dissolve the Union; and 
another furious time resulted. Henry A. Wise of Virginia, 
who as Governor in 1859 hanged John Brown, declared that 
for Adams he felt "personal loathing, dread and contempt." 
It was a wrathful contradiction in terms. 

The Deadlock. — In the middle of these stormy years, there 
came a time when the deadlocked House could not organize; 
whereupon they let the valiant old man preside until chaos 
could be partly converted into order. They knew that he was 
implacably honest and honorable. They knew that before the 
Supreme Court his practice was in the greatest land and other 
cases. 

Congressman Adams was slowly winning. In 1842, the 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 319 

majority in favor of the gag-law upon petitions was four; in 
1843, it was three; in 1844, after weeks of struggle, the vote 
was 80 to 108; Adams had won. Free speech is an everlast- 
ing human right. Denial of the right of petition, compared 
with slavery, is far, far more important. A week later, his 
petitions were received and duly referred to the Committee on 
the District of Columbia, 

Died in the Capitol. — Upon November 19, 1846, he was 
struck by paralysis in the streets of Boston. When he came 
back to Washington in February, 1847, the whole House rose 
to receive him. One year later, February 21, 1848, he fell 
when trying to address the Speaker ; and reviving a few hours 
later in the Speaker's room, he exclaimed, "This is the last 
of earth. I am content!" He remained there unconscious 
until his death upon the 23d. 

They placed a tablet in Quincy Church in memory of a real 
democrat and marked it ' Alteri Saeculo." 

His wife, who was eight years his junior, survived until 
1852, cared for by three sons and a daughter. 

A Victorious Life in Itself. — It may indeed be that some 
Supreme Court will yet declare that a protective tariff is un- 
constitutional and that J. Q. Adams had to fight vigorously 
for such a tariff, in order to have a place in Congress in which 
to fight for a good a thousand times more valuable than a 
Drotective tariff is injurious, — the right of the private citizen 
to make legislators hear him. The sum total of many gov- 
ernmental acts and policies may yet cause another civil war 
and social revolution. Yet, in the appointed zigzag of history 
toward the goal of humanity, John Quincy Adams has a defi- 
nite place; his life is in itself an asset to America. 



320 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

CHAPTER VII 

Andrew Jackson 

1829-1837 
1767-1845 

04-26 States 1830— Population I3,866,oao 

Admitted: Arkansas, Michigan. 

Contrast with all predecessors — breaker of at least five of the Ten Com- 
mandments — enemies and friends — early life — utterly alone in the 
world — white men "Indianized" — ^pioneers and settlers — his marriage 
with another man's wife — the Tennessee State Constitutional Conven- 
tion — member Federal House of Representatives and of Senate — de- 
scription by Albert Gallatin — Supreme Court Judge — general of militia 
— planter — speculator — ^killed opponent in duel — the Burr scheme- 
stolen negroes — Indian fighter — Major-General U. S. A. — stormed 
Pensacola — terrific slaughter of British veterans at New Orleans— 
the Hartford Convention contrast — fined for contempt of court — 
Scott declined duel with Jackson — more Indian wars — made money — 
popularity a dispensing power — United States Senator again — his poli- 
tical managers — compared with Washington — with Jefferson — the 
popular movement compared with Niagara- American democracy — "Old 
Hero" must be President — the claim against Adams in 1824 — hatred 
of Clay — relentless pursuit the characteristics of Jackson — President 
— the "sports system" — the political revolution — social manners — Jack- 
son a leveller — rotation in office — his Cabinet — the "kitchen cabinet" — 
Calhoun v. Van Buren — Peggy O'Neill — a new Cabinet — several for- 
eign treaties — a Georgia law relative to Indians held unconstitutional 
by United States Supreme Court — position taken by Jackson — cheap 
lands — ^high tariff — beneficiaries and laborers — the National Ban — 
internal improvements — Clay's "American System" — political conven- 
tions — Nicholas Biddle, adventurer — charges against the Bank — nulli- 
fication — ^its historical origin — unconstitutionality — Scott ordered to 
Charleston — public opinion — reelected — Anti-Masons — the government 
deposits — a Harvard honor — Clay carried censure in Senate — Taney 
made Chief Justice — decentralization — specie money — Benton carried 
expunging resolution — died at "The Hermitage" in Tennessee. 

Contrast with all Predecessors. — Between John Quincy 
Adams with his predecessors and Andrew Jackson with his 
successors, there was apparently an impassable gulf fixed. 



ANDREW JACKSON 321 

Adams was the last Secretary of State to succeed to the Presi- 
dency. John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and the 
second Adams were all learned men. George Washington was 
an accurate mathematician as surveyor, accountant and busi- 
ness man. They were all more or less gentlemen in birth, 
breeding, character, manners. 

And yet the associations of John Quincy Adams as Presi- 
dent are rather with Jackson than with the Jeffersonian dy- 
nasty. For entirely different reasons, they were both intensely 
American, — Adams because he knew so much of Europe, 
Jackson because he knew nothing of it, and did not attempt 
to conceive it. 

Not an Exponent of Obedience to the Ten Command- 
ments. — That splendid Americanism of Adams and his ad- 
ministration grew up spontaneously; and Jackson, the Indian 
fighter, became the symbol of the greater, deeper Americanism 
to which it conformed. For the sake of Adams himself, we 
may regret that Jackson defeated him for a merited second 
term. We may even regret that a man of many sterling and 
st^Lrtling qualities, with as many terrifying defects as Jackson 
ever came to the Presidency at all. He had broken at least 
five of the Ten Commandments : — he had daily taken the name 
of God in vain, he had killed, he had committed adultery, he 
had stolen, he had coveted. But it is wiser for us to see and 
to realize that we were fortunate in winning democracy with- 
out a bloody social revolution. Jackson was a safety-valve, 
opened wide, and screeching, thereby releasing the genie oi 
destruction into the atmosphere. 

As President, Andrew Jackson was a man of polite manners 
and usually gentle speech. But he enraged the classes and 
fascinated the masses, and was hated and loved accordingly. 
His real deficiencies and faults in later life were of the kind 
not obvious to casual observers. 

Opinions of His Friends and of His Enemies. — Those 
who still admire him love him. To them, he is one of the 
great Presidents, — ^Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln. 
Probably, they add Cleveland. But those who do not admire 
him but on the contrary fear and even abhor his like cannot 
condemn him to the grade of Buchanan; he was not weak or 
vacillating or dull. He was a smashing hard fighter ; and often 



322 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

fought without reason and warrant. He was an immensely 
notable personality. 

Utterly Alone in the World. — Andrew Jackson was 
born probably in South Carolina, possibly in North Carolina, 
March 15, 1767, — a few months earlier than J. Q. Adams. 
His father died the same year, probably only a few days prior. 
There were two older boys. The home was in the Waxhaw 
Settlement, most of which lay in North Carolina, Mecklen- 
burg County, part in Union County, part over the line in 
South Carolina. His father, mother and brothers were all 
born in Ireland, County Antrim, of Scotch nativity, but Saxon 
blood. 

When Andrew was yet a boy, he was wounded by a British 
officer who cut him in the face with a sword because he would 
not black his boots. Later, he and a brother were taken pris- 
oners. Before the war was over, his mother and both his 
brothers were dead ; and Andrew was not only an orphan but 
without brother or sister, strictly alone and vagrant in the 
world. 

Where White Men "Indianized.^'' — His was a fierce and 
eager soul in a wild and lawless land of mountains and valleys, 
in an age of Indian wars and white men's feuds. Beyond the 
Appalachians, adventurous emigrants from the Carolinas 
were setting up "the State of Franklin," — some called it 
"Frankland." Brave, strong, untamed men there were in that 
world of forests, of Indians, and of wild beasts. And Andrew 
Jackson grew up among them as one of them, — fighting, horse- 
racing, trading, hunting, gambling, adventuring life, limb, 
money, time, honor itself. There white men "Indianized," 
becoming fiercer than the red men. The story of the early days of 
Kentucky and Tennessee is the bloodiest chapter in American 
history. To this day, the traces of the rebarbarization of the 
Anglo-Saxon endure in eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. 
Sometimes, whole villages of the pioneers were wiped out by 
the Indians, and whole parties of the Indians wiped out by 
the pioneers. A "Kentuck" was often as skilful in taking 
scalps as any Indian ; and not seldom as real a savage. I speak 
by tradition of the blood since 1790. 

Pioneers and Settlers. — Behind the pioneers came the 
settlers, full of the litigious spirit. Every one was in debt. 



ANDREW JACKSON z^2> 

Promissory notes were the one universal medium of exchange. 
The settlers got their homesteads by squatting upon the lands. 
Surveyors for the owners who held paper titles fled eastward 
or deathward. 

In such a world, after trying farming and storekeeping, in 
1788, Andrew Jackson was admitted to the bar, under au- 
thority of the State of North Carolina but in the present State 
of Tennessee at Greenville. He knew no law; and it is not 
certain that he was ever examined for admission. A dan- 
gerous career opened before him; to help establish the reign 
of law. 

He Marries Another Man's Wife. — In 1791, at Natchez, 
under peculiar conditions, Jackson married Rachel Donelson. 
whom he had met as a lodger in her mother's house. In 1 790 
her husband, Robert Robards, had petitioned the Virginia Leg- 
islature to pass an act divorcing her on the ground of adultery 
with Jackson. The Legislature passed an act authorizing the 
Supreme Court of Kentucky, where the Robards had been 
married, under Virginia law, to try the case with a jury. In 
1793, the husband secured the divorce. In 1794, Jackson again 
married Rachel; and until her death in the winter before he 
was inaugurated President was exceedingly devoted to her. 
They had no children. Conduct of this kind creates a series 
of extraordinary situations. There was no evidence but only 
a presumption of adultery because of association and 
conduct prior to the unquestionably illegal and immoral 
first marriage. And yet Jackson stole a woman's heart 
from her husband, each being infatuated with the other. His 
domestic life was in fact beautiful; but the scandal of its 
beginning has never ceased. No man has any right whatso- 
ever to allow himself to express any interest in any other 
man's wife or to permit any wife to express any interest In 
him. According to the backwoods notions at the time, Lewis 
Robards would have been amply justified In killing either or 
both of the pair; or himself In order to end his own fierce 
jealousy. If he had killed Jackson! But we can scarcely 
imagine American history without Andrew Jackson. 

Member State Constitutional Convention; Senator 
OF the United States. — In 1796, Jackson took part In fram- 
ing the Constitution of the new State of Tennessee; himself 
proposing that name. From 1796 till 1798, he was first a 



324 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

member of the lower House of Congress and later a Senator, 
resigning from distaste for the service. 

His Appearance. — Albert Gallatin, the Swiss financier, 
described him then as "a lank, tall, uncouth-looking personage, 
with long locks of hair hanging over his face, and a cue down 
his back tied in an eel-skin, — a rough backswoodsman," He 
was a strange sight in staid, polished Philadelphia. Jackson 
bitterly, even violently, opposed President Washington. 

By getting the general government to repay the cost of one 
of the Indian wars of the State of Tennessee, Jackson made 
himself popular at home. Then he resigned the Senatorship 
to become a Superior Court Judge in Tennesse and also a gen- 
eral of militia. In 1803, he and ex-Governor John Sevier, one 
of the earliest of the pioneers, had a furious quarrel, being 
prevented only by their own partisans from killing one another. 
In the same year, he tried to get President Jefferson to make 
him governor of the Territory of Orleans, — after the purchase 
of Louisiana. But the year 1804 found him once more a 
private citizen, — a planter and a storekeeper, a debtor and a 
speculator. 

Kills a Man in a Duel. — In May, 1806, this man ever 
"mad upon his enemies" fought a merciless duel with Charles 
Dickinson, whose bullet split upon his breastbone and whom 
he then killed. The basis of the quarrel was the slander upon 
Mrs. Jackson. 

The Burr Scheme. — In the course of business, in 1805, 
Aaron Burr made a contract with Jackson for some boats 
down the Mississippi. In 1806, Jackson came to the conclusion 
that there was something wrong about the contract. But he 
went to Richmond to the trial of Burr, and supported Burr 
against Jefferson mainly because he believed that the real 
criminal was that General James Wilkinson, head of the regu- 
lar army, who was to lose the battle of Chateaugay in 181 2 and 
later to be shown up as an arrant scoundrel as well as miser- 
able military fakir. The intuitions of Jackson were against 
Wilkinson, the accuser of Burr. 

Shortly after this time, Jackson got into serious trpuble for 
what to-day looks like trading in stolen negroes, but he won 
by forcing the Indian agent who made the charge out of ofiBce 
and reducing him to poverty. This is one of the ugliest of the 
many ugly incidents of the life of Jackson. The Indians had 



ANDREW JACKSON 325 

smuggled the negroes out of Cuba or stolen them from Georgia 
and Carolina plantations. 

General of Militia. — As soon as the militant general of 
militia heard of the declaration of war in 1812, he offered his 
services. In January, 181 3, he set out with 2500 men to 
conquer the lower South ; but three months later was ordered 
to dismiss his troops. He marched them home at his own 
costs. In September, he fought the two Benton brothers in a 
quarrel that followed from this order; and carried a bullet in 
his shoulder for twenty years as the result. 

A week before this bloody encounter the Indians had mas- 
sacred 553 persons at Fort Mims, where the Tombigbee meets 
the Alabama river. In October, Jackson got out of bed from 
his wound and led an army against the Indians. He made a 
wonderful field leader of otherwise insubordinate volunteer 
soldiers. He had all the requisite qualities, — an intense nature 
that attracted interest, energy, indomitable perseverance despite 
poor health, sympathy with his men, direct purposes, decision 
and even severity of judgment, and a clear head. In short, 
he was a warrior and a commander. March 14, 181 4, he 
ordered a private shot for insubordination, an unusual order 
with volunteer troops ; by this execution, he enforced discipline. 
His campaign against the Creeks lasted seven months of steady 
success. Tecumseh had been killed in Canada in October, 
1813 ; with him died the hope of a universal race war of 
red against white men. But perhaps it prolonged the race 
struggle. 

Major-General U. S. A. — In May, 181 4, the general of 
militia became a Major-General of the United States Army. 
In August, the city of Washington was taken and burned by 
the British. In September, an attacking force at Mobile was 
repulsed and retreated to Pensacola. General Jackson, with- 
out orders from Washington, stormed Pensacola successfully. 
Believing that the British would next try their fortunes at 
New Orleans, he moved his army to that point and put the 
city under martial law. He enlisted many free negroes and 
the pirates of Barataria. And he wrote bombastic proclama- 
tions in the style of Napoleon, Americans were nearly all 
fooled by the Napoleonic imposture of a passion for liberty, 
fooled by one of the greatest geniuses of all time but a fraud 
and a measureless criminal none the less. 



326 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Battle of New Orleans. — On January 8, 1815, in the 
battle of New Orleans, the Americans lost seven killed and 
six wounded, and the British 2000 killed, wounded and miss- 
ing. And yet Jackson himself reported that the Kentuckians 
on the west side of the river "ingloriously fled." It was one 
of the strangest fights in history. Pakenham was a brother- 
in-law of the Duke of Wellington; and his soldiers were vet- 
erans of the Duke's Spanish campaigns. Half the British dead 
had been hit by shots between the eyes. There was no chance 
for marching columns of red-coats against men who could shoot 
the heads off squirrels on tops of trees and who at a hundred 
paces would let their friends shoot silver dollars from be- 
tween thumb and finger. Individuals counted, and the valiant 
massed troops were mowed down before they reached Jack- 
son's mud redoubts. Ten thousand such sharpshooting vol- 
unteers under Jackson would have defeated all the British, 
Germans, Austrians and French together at Waterloo. And 
not a man among them would have known what to do with 
the continent after the victory. 

Even though Pakenham was dead, the British rallied and 
took Fort Bowyer February 12. By this time, the news of 
the Treaty of Ghent reached New Orleans. 

The Hartford Convention. — Never was a victory more 
opportune for political purposes. All America was in grief 
and shame over the Washington disgrace. New England had 
held the Hartford Convention, — with its request for radical 
Constitutional revision and its covert threat of secession. 

Fined for Contempt of Court and then Repaid. — At 
Mobile, February 21, 181 5, General Jackson had six men 
executed for breaking into a storehouse in September and for 
deserting in company with two hundred others. It was dis- 
cipline far beyond anything the West had known before. 
Somewhat later in the year, Jackson was himself fined $1000 
for contempt of court in a serious matter of violation of a 
writ of habeas corpus for a French citizen of New Orleans. 
In 1844, Congress refunded the amount with interest, — $2700. 
Such was and is politics. 

Takes Pensacola. — The War of 181 2 determined Jack- 
son's future ; he held high command in the regular army. In 
181 7, when fifty years old, he had trouble with General Win- 
field Scott and challenged him to a duel, which Scott declined. 



ANDREW JACKSON 327 

In April, 181 8, in the midst of his Indian warfare in the 
South, Jackson had two Englishmen, Ambrister and Arbuth- 
not, executed, — being thirty-three and seventy years of age 
respectively, — their crimes, inciting Indian insurrections and 
acting as spies. The next month, he took Pensacola, deposed 
the Spanish government, and set up an American garrison in 
control. 

Made Money. — In these Indian wars, he had 1800 white 
soldiers and 1500 friendly Indians against probably not half 
as many hostile Indians. In all, eighty Indians were killed 
and not one white man. By this fighting, Jackson had plunged 
the nation into trouble with England and Spain and had set 
President James Monroe and Congress by the ears. He had 
done too much. Incidentally and mysteriously, he had made 
some money. 

A Popular Idol. — But the government was forced to sup- 
port Jackson because he had become a popular idol, — he was 
the man who does things, the man who can, a natural king. 
His popularity exercised for him a dispensing power; there 
was none great enough to judge him. In the Cabinet, only 
Adams defended him for his course in Florida. Now arose 
fued, — ^Jackson against Clay in Congress, Jackson against 
Crawford in the Cabinet. In February, 181 9, the great Gen- 
eral went to New York on his first visit. After the purchase 
of Florida, he was made its territorial governor in 1821 ; and 
left the regular army. In six months, he stirred up much 
trouble, grew ill, and resigned. He declined the mission to 
Mexico, and stayed at home in Tennessee. 

Senator Again. — In 1823, Jackson was again a United 
States Senator and voted for the protective tarifif and for 
internal improvements. 

His Political Managers. — In the wake of such an on- 
going, quarrelsome yet steadily successful and increasingly 
popular man, there is apt to travel a group of those who will 
make their own political capital out of his greatness. They 
learn his peculiarities and manage him. They learn the pecu- 
liarities of his public and manage it also. And in the case of 
Andrew Jackson, as long ago as 181 5, they had set out to 
make him President of the people of the United States. 

Compared with Washington. — ^That the character and 
career of Washington should be popularly compared with 



328 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

the character and career of Andrew Jackson has been styled 
"a grotesque vagary of history." But the comparison was 
inevitable. Each was an Indian fighter, a hero of a war with 
Great Britain, a man of blood, a wanderer, a speculator ; each 
was great in action but something of a tool for others to 
work with. Yet the contrasts were as striking. Washington 
was methodical, Jackson erratic. Washington created awe, 
Jackson love or terror. Washington usually had superb health, 
Jackson none. Both grew intellectually until death ; but Wash- 
ington grew by steady, plodding effort, Jackson by flashes of 
insight. In the end, Washington was patient, massive, superb ; 
Jackson gracious, quick, fascinating. Washington could see 
both sides, Jackson was wholly partisan. 

Compared with Jefferson. — Another comparison is in- 
evitable. Both Jefferson and Jackson were democratic leaders. 
They believed in the people, and the people believed in them. 
Both were ardent partisans. But far greater differences sepa- 
rated Jackson from Jefferson than separated Jackson from 
Washington. Jefferson was conciliatory, ingratiating; Jack- 
son militant, upright-and-downright. Jefferson was a man 
of the salon and court, the library, the council, the desk, the 
garden; Jackson a man of the forest, the battle-field, pistol and 
sword, the market, the crowd. Both rode horseback, — ^Jeffer- 
son for exercise and for love of horses and outdoors, Jack- 
son for practice as soldier and commander. Jefferson 
was an eager student and in a way a scholar, Jackson already 
knew. 

The Popular Movement like Niagara. — Beyond any 
other Presidents, these men had their will, — ^Jefferson, how- 
ever, less than Jackson, — ^Jefferson by initiating and directing 
a new, wide people's movement with skill and wisdom, — ^Jack- 
son by force and by fascination and by leading. It was the 
same movement. The place of Jefferson in it was like Lake 
Erie as it enters Niagara river; the place of Jackson was 
where the river narrows and plunges in cataract. The Civil 
War in Lincoln's time was the fearful whirlpool ; and recon- 
struction the yet deeper gorge below. The waters of the 
democratic stream have not yet issued from the furious and 
fatal gorge into calm Lake Ontario. 

Of all our Presidents, those who came nearest to being 
King were Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln, — ^Jackson most 



ANDREW JACKSON 329 

of all, — which displays to all the world how utterly impossible 
kingship is in this heteroclite and mongrel democracy. It was 
sired by the high-flown philosophy of doctrinaire Jefferson 
and born of the mixing of the blood of all peoples and races 
and languages, peasants, runaways, mechanics, yeomen, zealots, 
younger sons of gentlemen, soldiers and sailors, adventurers, 
traders, heroes and saints, cowards and criminals, virtuous 
and vicious, the pure and the vile, all stripped to the skin, rac- 
ing forward, downward, in the strangest, swiftest, greatest 
welter of humanity since the beginning. 

Jackson in his brave canoe of military fame and popular 
favor rode in the flood, careened, plunged over Niagara's 
brink, and survived. 

There stood the ancient landmarks of aristocratic power, 
the Senate and the Court. He might have been impeached, 
but he wasn't. It was an astonishing epoch, that fourth 
decade of the nineteenth century in America. 

Several Styles of Democracy. — Jeffersonian democracy 
is a body of doctrine to the general effect that the nation 
should be controlled by a majority of its population, finding 
men of the highest grade to carry out its will intelligently. 
Democracy is the will; government the intelligence. Jeffer- 
sonian democracy assumes that superior persons, even experts, 
shall be placed in office. It stands for many things, — peace 
at almost any price, permanence in office of all clerks and other 
minor incumbents, non-interference, strict interpretation of 
the Constitution, low taxes, few internal improvements beyond 
postoffices at national expense, simplicity, dignity, liberty. 
"The least government is the best government." Such democ- 
racy is quite consistent with an air of good breeding in the 
conduct of government; and it carries with it the fragrance 
of philosophy. 

Jacksonian democracy has less doctrine and is simpler. It 
asserts that the nation should be directed and controlled by its 
majority, placing men in office who are its delegates; ambas- 
sadors, representatives, agents, clerks, — ^not its interpreters, 
leaders, experts, seers. It is militant, not reflective. It acts 
upon the axiom of war, — "To the victors belong the spoils !" 
It practices rotation in office, giving every man his chance to 
be fool or sage in public, knave or saint. And it ends either 
in anarchy or in tyranny, for demos is either outlaw or 



330 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

tyrant. Either every man does that which is right in his own 
eyes and there is no judge in the land, as in ancient Israel, or 
Saul, towering head and shoulders above all the people, is 
sought out among the asses to be king. Jackson was the 
American Saul. To this day, he stands out tall and terrible 
upon the track of our American past. 

"Old Hero"'' Must be President. — In 1824, the political 
manipulators behind General Jackson almost secured the Presi- 
dency for him. There was indeed no valid reason why he 
should be President. Perhaps to call him "an Indian fighter" 
is to belittle him unfairly. He was a shrewd and unscrupulous 
business man, an excellent commander of a few thousand vol- 
unteer soldiers, and something of a local politician. There 
was, however, no other way for the American people to show 
honor to "the hero of New Orleans" and to answer all his 
detractors than to bestow upon him signal political power, — 
which meant the Presidency. In the wake of this ship, many 
a small boat might be towed into the safe political harbor of 
a salaried office. 

Two forces made Jackson a candidate for the Presidency, — 
hero-worship and personal politics, such as this nation hitherto 
had entirely escaped. 

The defeat of Jackson in the House, after the failure to 
elect in the Electoral College, caused the bringing forward 
of a new doctrine. It was first urged by Senator Thomas H. 
Benton, — a plurality of the popular vote should elect. Benton 
asserted that because more persons had voted for Jackson than 
for Adams, Congress should have carried out the popular 
will. This is democracy at its lowest terms. It is not consti- 
tutional government. Its instability is perilous. 

Relentless Pursuit of His Object. — Throughout the 
administration of Adams, the Jackson manipulators kept 
working away to get their man into the White House in 
1829. The General himself nursed his grievances against 
Henry Clay whom he styled "the Judas of the West" because 
he had turned his votes in the House to a Massachusetts man 
and not to Jackson of Tennessee; against Crawford; even 
against Calhoun of South Carolina, and against Adams him- 
self, both men being as yet in no wise bitter enemies of his. 
But one of Jackson's strongest traits was relentless pursuit of 
an object; with this went hatred of whomsoever and of what- 



ANDREW JACKSON 331 

soever stood in his path to that object. The pursuit and the 
hate made him take mean views of all who did not share his 
purposes and inclined him to impute dishonorable motives to 
them. He became an ardent seeker of the Presidency and a 
hater of those who would not aid him in the seeking. 

Elected President. — Partisan newspapers, a literary bu- 
reau in the style of the colonial committees of correspondence, 
factions more numerous and bitter than had been known in 
the country since its first settlement, and the swelling tide of 
new and inexperienced men in Congress and in the State legis- 
latures characterized the administration of Adams. Such 
quarrels invariably follow eras of good feeling. Two parties 
were in process of formation. To all impartial observers, the 
election of Jackson was a foregone conclusion. For the first 
time in American political history, both Houses of Congress 
were anti-administration. In 1828, Jackson carried the Elec- 
toral College by more than 2 to i. He carried Pennsylvania 
in the popular vote by 2 to i ; Tennessee by 20 to i ; and 
Georgia, which had witnessed his Indian campaigns, unani- 
mously, for there was no Adams electoral ticket. John C. 
Calhoun was elected Vice-President. 

The Spoils System. — "The spoils system," already estab- 
lished in New York State and in Pennsylvania, was now ex- 
tended into national affairs. Until the time of Jackson the 
removal from office had been : 

Washington 9, of whom i was a defaulter. 

John Adams 10, of whom i was a defaulter. 

Jefferson, 39 

Madison 5, of whom 3 were defaulters. 

Monroe 9 

J. Q. Adams 2, both for cause ascertained. 

The Political Revolution. — From March 4, 1829, to 
March 22, 1830, President Jackson removed 730 officers, of 
whom 491 were postmasters. This was the year of drastic 
proscription, a proscription forced upon Jackson by the men 
who had made him President rather than originated by his 
own will. In all, during the eight years of his "reign," as his 
enemies styled his Presidency, several thousand office-holders 
were changed. Hitherto, a man who entered public service 



332 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

looked upon it as a life-work. Doubtless, there were many 
"barnacles" upon the good ship of state. Doubtless, recent 
"civil service reform" has tended to keep many men in office 
actually invalided by old age and disease but now virtually 
irremovable until obviously and hopelessly inefficient. But 
taken as a whole, the civil service was far better from Wash- 
ington to John Quincy Adams than from Jackson on until the 
"reform" at the close of the nineteenth century. A minor 
public office should be a life-business, not a temporary prize. 
It should go to one who is naturally subordinate, even subser- 
vient, who sees kfe in the terms of obedience to and guidance 
by real superiors, 

Jackson a Leveller. — Western democracy as the guiding 
principle in American national politics helped to put an end 
to class and to caste. The European notion that one man is 
honored by "knowing" another and is disgraced by being 
"known" socially by a third man, — that to be addressed by a 
man should raise one in his own estimation or his neighbor's, — 
got terrific blows in the days of the American Revolution. 
But it survived until Andrew Jackson became the first citizen 
of the land. In the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, 
it went out with knee breeches and silver buckles; fancy em- 
broidered waistcoats had gone out a generation before. Thisi 
is not to say that the manners of President Jackson were rude, 
uncouth, back woodsy. In deed by 1829, his manners were 
better than those of John Quincy Adams, for all the diplomat's 
experience at European courts. He was polite, urbane, and 
gallant. Daniel Webster said that his wife greatly admired 
the social graces of "Old Hickory." 

Yet the Indian fighter was a leveller beyond even Sam 
Adams. With his rotation in office, he broke the old bureau- 
cracy. Washington saw new faces. And what took place in 
the National Capital was taking place likewise in every other 
city, — Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, even 
Charleston and Savannah. The levelling never was complete, 
— not even in Washington. But it was real, extensive and 
obvious. 

His Two Cabinets. — Into his Cabinet, the President had 
put Martin Van Buren of New York as Secretary of State, 
S. D. Ingram of Pennsylvania as Secretary of the Treasury, 
J. H. Eaton of Kentucky, second husband of Peggy O'Neill, 



ANDREW JACKSON ,333 

as Secretary of War, — his first wife had been a niece of Mrs. 
Jackson, — ^John Branch of North CaroHna as Secretary of 
the Navy, John M. Berrien of Georgia as Attorney-General, 
and W. T. Barry as Postmaster-General, — an office now 
elevated to Cabinet rank. It was considered even at the first 
a weak body; and Jackson treated its members as clerks, at 
first discontinuing Cabinet meetings until requested two years 
later by Congress to resume them. 

There soon grew a "kitchen cabinet" of the men who knew 
how to manage Jackson. These men held minor government 
positions. They included William B. Lewis of Tennessee, who 
had developed Jackson for the Presidency, — an astute, silent, 
loyal friend of his hero ; Amos Kendall of Kentucky, formerly 
of Massachusetts, a Dartmouth College graduate, at one time 
a tutor in the family of Henry Clay, lawyer, editor, postmaster, 
immensely clever, something of a statesman, more of a politi- 
cian, — who later became very rich through partnership with 
S. F. B. Morse, artist, scientist and inventor ; Dufif Green, the 
partisan editor of the Jackson "organ," "The Globe"; Isaac 
Hill of New Hampshire, another editor; and several others 
who came in as the years passed. The first two became re- 
spectively Second and Fourth Auditors of the Treasury; and 
Hill was United States Senator from 1831 to 1836, when he 
resigned. 

Calhoun versus Van Buren. — The first struggle in the ad- 
ministration was between John C. Calhoun, who had been re- 
elected Vice-President and who expected to be the heir of 
Jackson, and Martin Van Buren for the patronage. For John 
Adams, the Vice-Presidency had been the last stage on the 
road to the Presidency; for Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and 
J. Q. Adams the Secretaryship of State had been that stage 
on the road. 

What shall we do about Peggy O'Neill? — The Cabi- 
net split on the rock of a question, — ^What shall we do about 
Peggy O'Neill ? She was the daughter of a Washington inn- 
keeper, — ^low class, according to old social notions. Peggy 
had married a purser in the navy, by name, Timberlake; but 
she stayed at home when he went on voyage. In the Mediter- 
ranean service, he got drunk often and was severely repri- 
manded. His friends said that he drank to forget Peggy's 
amours. Then he committed suicide. Almost at once, Mrs. 



334 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Timberlake and Secretary Eaton, a boarder at the inn, were 
married. The case was singularly like Jackson's own save 
that Robard had persisted in staying alive. It happened that 
Mrs. Jackson had died in December, 1828; and the General, 
always a sentimentalist, was now keener than ever in respect 
to anything that suggested their marriage. 

But the wives of the other Secretaries of the Cabinet would 
not recognize Mrs. Eaton. We may wonder what attitude 
they would have displayed toward Mrs. Jackson, had she lived. 
Mrs. Donelson, wife of Jackson's own nephew and private 
secretary, was mistress of the White House. But she would 
not receive Mrs. Eaton, and the President sent her home to 
Tennessee for one winter. The wives of diplomats also 
would not sit at dinner with the new Mrs. Eaton. 

It assists in understanding the situation to know that in 
1824 Jackson himself had lodged in the tavern kept by the 
father of Peggy O'Neill at the time of her husband's suicide. 
Eaton also lodged there. Jackson asserted belief in her inno- 
cence and goodness. Mrs. Calhoun was especially violent in 
her denunciations of Mrs. Eaton as an improper person; this 
violence made her husband obnoxious to Jackson. Henry Clay 
took up the quarrel, and tried to break the Cabinet, espousing 
the side of the offended ladies. His own reputation was such 
that this espousal of the cause of social decency was sneered 
at as hypocritical. 

A New Cabinet. — Beginning in April, 1831, the Secre- 
taries resigned, — first Eaton, then Van Buren, until within a 
few months Jackson had an entirely new Cabinet, — the De- 
partments being headed as follows: Edward Livingston of 
Louisiana, State; Louis McLane of Delaware, Treasury; 
Lewis Cass of Michigan, War; Levi Woodbury of New 
Hampshire, Navy; and Roger B. Taney of Maryland, Attor- 
ney-General. Livingston had been second only to William B. 
Lewis as the coacher of Jackson for the Presidency. Not one 
of these men was then of proven Cabinet size; and but one 
deserves any honor as an American statesman, — Lewis Cass. 
Even this arrangement did not last long in any of the De- 
partments. 

Several Foreign Treaties, — In 1830, President Jackson 
secured the reopening of the trade of the United States v/ith 
the West Indies on a complicated bargain, however, that fav- 



ANDREW JACKSON 335 

ored Great Britain. In 1831, by treaty with France, he won 
a settlement of the claims of the citizens of the United States 
against that nation, — some $5,000,000, — and of the citizens 
of France against the United States, — some $250,000. In 
1836, we nearly went to war, trying to get the money, which 
was finally, however, paid in installments. 

The Indians and the Courts. — During the first adminis- 
tration of Jackson, grave troubles arose with the Southern 
Indians, — the considerably civilized Cherokees, who numbered 
16,000 with 1250 negro slaves, the Chickasaws, the Choctaws 
and the Creeks, lowest in culture but 40,000 in number, — in all 
80,000 persons. Despite treaty rights guaranteed by the United 
States, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi all passed laws 
against the Indians. Two Boston missionaries refused to get 
licenses from Georgia to live among the Cherokees; and a 
State judge ordered them imprisoned for four years at hard 
labor in the penitentiary. The Supreme Court of the United 
States held the Georgia law unconstitutional, and ordered the 
men released. The Georgia authorities declined to obey, prac- 
tically nullifying the Supreme Court of the United States. 
President Jackson refused to enforce the Court's order. In 
1833, the missionaries were pardoned, an evasive shift to avoid 
the real issue. There were many similar cases, showing at 
once the race questions involved and the President's hostility 
to the judiciary, which resembled Jefferson's. The President 
said, "Joh" Marshall has given his decision; now let him 
enforce it." 

The New Indian Territory. — By 1838, through various 
treaties, laws, armed conflicts, and money payments, most of 
the Indians had been sent into the newly established Indian 
Territory beyond the Mississippi. With a different President, 
they might all have been left in the Gulf States, their natural 
homes. 

Great Questions in Congress. — It was in a debate over 
withholding the public lands from sale that Daniel Webster 
made his famous reply to Robert Y. Hayne in 1830. Jackson 
himself had no policy with regard to our vast domains of un- 
settled public lands. This question became inextricably in- 
volved with that of the tariff, and both with that of the 
National Bank; and all three with that of internal improve- 
ments. Before any satisfactory answers to these four ques- 



336 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

tions were made, the mighty question asked by South Caro- 
Hna as to nulHfication had to be answered. 

Cheap Lands. — They are indeed separate problems; but 
in the mixing of American pohtics, well-defined issues are 
hard to get. Cheap lands mean the drawing of men away 
from cities, — away from manufacturing and commerce. 
Henry Clay was for cheap land. But the purposes of tariffs 
may be two, — to raise revenues and to discourage the impor- 
tation of foreign goods. In 1828 "the tariff of abominations" 
had been passed. Adams had signed it. Some members of 
Congress had voted for its worst features in the hope that, as 
a whole, it would be so bad that no majority could be log- 
rolled together for it, or that upon its passing the President 
would veto it. Wool was its substance, an ominous portent in 
American history. 

Our trade was then annually as follows, viz, : 

Exports — mainly cotton, rice, tobacco $28,000,000 

Imports — woolens 8,000,000 

steel and other hardware 4,000,000 

miscellaneous 16,000,000 

Sectionalism. — The country was divided sectionally, — 
New England desired high duties on woolens and cottons and 
low duties on wool, iron, hemp, salt, and molasses (for rum 
there). Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky desired low duties 
on woolens and cottons and high duties on wool, iron, hemp, 
salt, and molasses (for whiskey there). The South desired 
low duties on everything ; but would go rather with the second 
group of States than with New England upon the direct issue. 

The high tariff manufacturers asked for cheap labor. To 
keep wages down by an abundant supply of laborers, they 
wished to end moving upon the public lands. 

The National Bank, with its twenty-five branches, needed 
business upon which to live. So likewise did the local banks 
in the several States. The bankers favored free access to the 
lands, — they were supposed to be good security for loans. 
Even in England at this period, there were wild notions as to 
banking. 

The West desired internal improvements, as did some east- 
ern and southern localities. The West especially favored such 



ANDREW JACKSON 337 

improvements as would encourage settlement. What nine 
men in ten want is neighbors. Men instinctly feel that life is 
easier in society. Solitude tends to savagery; and savagery 
tends to extinction, inevitably. 

These hard problems came up to Jackson in a form in which 
a soldier might settle them by knocking them in the head. 
Jackson was no thinker, but he was a soldier. 

South Carolina Talks Nullification. — In 1830, while 
Jackson's heart was aflame with the Eaton matter, Congress 
passed acts that reduced the taxes upon salt, molasses, coffee, 
cocoa and tea, but making more stringent the appraisals of all 
articles. The great items were to be worse than ever. In 
April, at a public banquet, Jackson gave as a toast, — "Our 
federal Union: it must be preserved." It was a hard blow to 
the Southern party. They hoped that the President, who had 
allowed virtual nullification of Federal Indians laws, would 
allow nullification of the protective tariff. South Carolina 
began to talk secession. In October, 1831, a free trade con- 
vention was held at Philadelphia ; and a protectionist conven- 
tion at New York. In the following winter, J. O. Adams in 
Congress, a protectionist, was made chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Manufactures, with a majority of its members anti- 
protectionists. Clay advocated an "American system," — the 
tariff to be prohibitive of imports. He even advocated letting 
the rest of the public debt stand so as to make no revenue for 
its payment necessary. Jackson and Adams favored paying 
the debt. In 1832, an Act was passed that abolished or reduced 
the revenue features of the tariff but left its protective features, 
— woolens were raised fifty per cent, higher. Low grade wool 
came in free. Clay and the manufacturers had won. 

Positions of the Leaders. — Again, Jackson was before 
the country for the Presidency. He had opposed internal 
improvements, generally on two grounds, — first, their "uncon- 
stitutionality" and "special interests," — government does not 
exist to help individuals as such or even localities as such, but 
only to forward indubitably the public welfare. He had fav- 
ored paying the public debt. He had been an economist, and 
a non-interferer, in true democratic fashion. And he was 
known to hate the National Bank. Where he really stood on 
the tariff, no one knew. Clay took up the cause of the Bank, 
which would need a new charter in 1836. 



338 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

The New Party Conventions. — Conventions of parties 
had now become the fashion. The National Republicans met 
in December, 1831, and nominated Clay for President and 
Sergeant for Vice-President. The Democratic Convention 
met in May, 1832, and nominated Jackson unanimously and 
Van Buren for Vice-President by over 4 to i. The Anti- 
Masons, who had become a great party, nominated that 
William Wirt who in 1807 had conducted the prosecution of 
Aaron Burr and had been Attorney-General from 181 7 to 
1829. 

Nicholas Biddle and His Bank, — The contest concerned 
chiefly the National Bank. Clay favored its re-charter, mainly 
because Jackson opposed it. The opposition of Andrew Jack- 
son to this second of our National Banks is a matter that can 
be understood only in the light of an understanding of the 
temperament and social opinions of this unique man. He 
shuddered at the memory of Hamilton, who had brought the 
National Bank idea out of Europe into America. He felt an 
instinctive and probably justifiable enmity to its President, 
Nicholas Biddle, a young, plausible, literary, brilliant, daring 
aristocrat of Philadelphia. Jackson was a relentless hunter. 
He made Nicholas Biddle his quarry. He felt that the Bank 
was a monster, too big for even Congress to control, — the 
head and front of a growing and dangerous "money-power." 
He disliked its corporate alliance with the United States 
Government. He feared for equality and liberty. In this 
hostility to the Bank itself, Jackson again was probably jus- 
tified. 

Charges against the National Bank. — At any rate, the 
campaign was waged by Biddle for the Bank against Jackson ; 
and by Jackson against Biddle and the Bank. The charges 
against the Bank were many; they included usury, drafts 
issued as currency contrary to statute and to honest banking, 
selling gold coin as bullion or commodity, trading in its own 
stocks, gifts to canals and roads, trading in real estate, sub- 
sidizing the press, lending over a million dollars (three per 
cent, of its capital) to Thomas Biddle, cousin of Nicholas, 
drawing specie from the West, lending money to members of 
Congress, having forty Congressmen as stockholders, control 
by a little clique of directors, and a dozen similar items. Upon 
July 10, 1832, Jackson vetoed a bill granting a new charter, — • 



ANDREW JACKSON 1339 

it had passed the Senate by a vote of 28 to 20, the House by 
107 to 85. To pass it over the veto, the vote in the Senate was 
22 to 19 upon July 13; and the Bank had failed to get the 
necessary two-thirds. 

Hotheads and Hasty in South Carolina. — While this 
campaign was on, came nullification and its defeat. In No- 
vember, 1832, a convention in South Carolina adopted an 
ordinance declaring that the tariff laws of 1828 and of 1832 
were "null and void." There was supposed to be in a State 
Convention some mysterious potency of the popular will 
higher, greater and nobler than existed in a State Legislature 
or in Congress. This was a fruit of the Federal Convention 
of 1787, which accomplished a work beyond the Congress of 
the Confederation, — and yet some of the members were the 
same in Congress and in Convention! That potency consists 
in two facts, — first, the Convention has a single, distinct, well- 
known purpose, and, second, it comes fresh and immediate 
from the people. As offsets, the convention usually has a 
lower average quality of men, the naming more of accident 
than of deliberation ; and men of less experience than those of 
the legislature. And it is usually nearer to the popular will 
and whim of the moment, which is by no means a source of 
confidence to the discerning. 

The convention tears down privileges and creates rights; 
the legislature preserves both privileges and rights. The con- 
vention is usually radical and destructive and always, until 
these later days in America, occasional. The legislature is 
traditional and constructive and continuous. 

Historical Origins of Nullification. — ^To Jefferson, to 
Madison and to Jackson himself belongs the responsibility of 
the Nullification Convention of South Carolina, — to Jeffer- 
son as the author of the Kentucky resolutions of 1798 relative 
to the Alien and Sediton Acts ;^ to Madison as the author of 
the Virginia resolutions of the same general tenor, though 
milder;^ and to Jackson because he had allowed Georgia her 
way with the Indians.^ Not one of them had gone to the 
extremes of South Carolina, not one supposed that any sin- 
gle State of its own motion could nullify an Act of Con- 
gress. 

^See pp. 248, 249, supra. *See p. 284, supra. *See p. 235, supra. 



340 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Unconstitutionality. — Nullification is the business of 
the Supreme Court. We raise here undoubtedly the question 
of the validity of the decision of Chief Justice Marshall and 
his associates in Marbury v. Madison, 1803, and in McCulloch 
V. Maryland in 181 9. In the former case, the Court held that 
Congress could not annul the specific provisions of the Con- 
stitution and that any bill actually intending to do so was not 
law. In the latter case, the Court held that a State legislature 
could not annul the Federal Constitution. In 1821, in Cohens 
V. Virginia, the Court asserted its right to hear appeals of 
certain kinds from the State courts, — all governments and all 
individuals are, therefore, under the control of the Federal 
Government. What kinds, the Court will decide. 

In Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, it has always been a common 
law right for judges to say whether the law pleaded is or is 
not law. In essence, this is all that the Supreme Court has 
said in these famous, constitution-building decisions; but in 
effect, it made itself dominant in the National Government, 
and the Government paramount over the States. The Consti- 
tution says something different, — ^Whatever was not expressly 
granted to the Federal Government was reserved to the States. 
— Amendments, Article X. 

This course on the part of the Supreme Court has been 
praised as nation-building and denounced as usurpation. It 
was both. It centralized and solidified government and de- 
creased liberty. It was never intended by the fathers that the 
Court should be a perpetual constitutional convention and 
literally supreme in the land. On the contrary, they provided 
two definite methods of constitutional revision by amendments. 
It is possible to make a nation so solid that it will burst from 
the compression of its inner life; the so-called "Civil" War 
was such a bursting caused by the Dred Scott decision that the 
Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. It is possible also 
to make a court so strong as to invite a Taney than whom a 
Cromwell is not more capable of setting a spark to explode 
the magazine of national sentiment. Revolutions usually 
arise from tyrannies judicially enforced. 

Congress Not a Parliament. — ^What the Court did was 
to say that Congress is no sovereign Parliament to amend "an 
unwritten constitution" as It wills and no Federal Convention 
sitting perpetually for such amendment. 



ANDREW JACKSON 341 

The nullifiers of South CaroHna with Governor James Ham- 
ilton as President of their Convention proceeded to add that 
any appeal from their courts to the United States Supreme 
Court regarding the tariff would itself be contempt of court. 
On November 27, 1832, the Legislature passed laws to make 
these nullification ordinances effective; and backed the threat 
of secession by ordering one thousand stand of arms for the 
State militia. 

In December at Columbia, the western counties of South 
Carolina held a Convention to denounce nullification ; and civil 
war within the State was threatened. 

Jackson Defeats Nullification. — President Jackson 
ordered two war vessels to proceed to Charleston, and Gen- 
eral Winfield Scott, head of the army, was set to collecting 
troops to enforce the laws. In a proclamation (written by 
Secretary Livingston) he declared nullification "incompatible 
with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the 
letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, incon- 
sistent with every principle" in it "and destructive of the great 
object for which it was formed." 

The proclamation electrified the country. It was the most 
popular action of all Jackson's long life, not excepting the 
victory at New Orleans. 

The Southern nullifiers, who were not a majority save in 
South Carolina, thought that the proclamation was due to 
Jackson's hatred of Calhoun. Old John Randolph travelled 
about the State in his carriage trying to arouse the people 
against the proclamation but advised them not to secede yet! 
Calhoun resigned the Vice-Presidency and was elected United 
States Senator. 

January 16, 1833, Jackson sent a message to Congress to 
enact extensive legislation affecting the whole situation. A 
tremendous debate upon constitutional theories followed. All 
the State legislatures except South Carolina passed resolutions 
against nullification; but there were some ominous additional 
resolutions, — North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and New 
Hampshire assailed the tariff; Virginia offered to mediate 
between the United States and South Carolina; and Georgia 
asked for a convention of the Gulf States. 

Nullifiers' Right as to the Tariff. — Often it happens, 
in the lives of nations and of Individuals, that on a minor issue 



342 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

an aggressor is right, but upon the major issue wrong. The 
nulHfiers were right as to the tariff. It was outrageous. But 
as to nullification, they were wrong, not because they offended 
the letter or even the spirit of the Constitution but because 
they offended public opinion and manifest destiny. The new 
migrating multitudes of the North and West cared naught for 
State lines. One nation from Atlantic to Pacific, from Lakes 
to Gulf, was in the march of events. Families resident in 
ancestral homes are requisite for defending State's rights and 
domestic institutions and customs. Transients are only Ameri- 
cans, not Rhode Islanders or Georgians as well. Now that in 
the twentieth century public lands are gone. State's rights will 
grow apace. Climate and association and heredity are behind 
the true doctrine. 

Jackson Wins against Clay. — In November, 1832, the 
popular elections had taken place. When in 1833 the Electoral 
College met, the votes stood : 



Jackson 


219 


Van Buren 


189 


Clay 


49 


Sergeant 


49 


Floyd^ 


II 


Henry Lee* 


II 


Wirt=^ 


7 


Ellmaker^ 


■ 7 






Wilkins^ 


30 



In every State save South Carolina, there was a popular 
vote, which stood, in its totals : 

Jackson 707,217, Clay 328,561, Wirt 254,720. 

Anti-Masonry. — ^The Anti-Masonic vote, for Wirt and 
Ellmaker, was a singular and a significant phenomenon. Anti- 
Masonry began with popular indignation in 1826 against the 
kidnapping and assumed murder of one William Morgan, who 
being a Mason and needing money, tried to earn some by 
exposing its secrets in a manuscript that, however, was never 
published. A body found in Niagara river was identified 
as his. 

With this unhappy incident as nucleus, the Anti-Masons 
gathered together many factions. Their convention in 1830 
was the first in American history to publish a platform. The 

*0f South Carolina, nullifier. 
^Anti-Mason, Vermont only. 
^Of Pennsylvania, independent, hostile to Van Buren. 



ANDREW JACKSON 343 

movement grew into hostility to all secret societies. They 
invented the national political convention, which met in Sep- 
tember, 1 83 1, choosing Wirt for Presidential candidate. They 
hoped that the National Republicans would endorse him. 
When the Republicans nominated Henry Clay, Wirt tried to 
withdraw. It is a fair question whether by dividing in their 
opposition to Jackson the Republicans and Anti-Masons did 
not actually increase his majority. Probably, Clay alone would 
have had more votes than Clay and Wirt drew for their 
rival tickets. But the result showed that even Henry Clay 
was out of the running with "Old Hickory" as his rival. If 
the vote had been taken in December, after the Nullification 
issue had been raised, Jackson would have had an almost unani- 
mous vote outside of the Gulf States. Even in November, 
the result was a triumph for Jackson. He had become a 
tribune of the people. He now proceeded as never before to 
rule the land, — without guiding principles or an understand- 
ing mind. The second administration of Andrew Jackson is 
a chapter sui generis in American history; he overrode Con- 
gress and with his reinforced kitchen cabinet was the govern- 
ment. No man and no interest could stand against him. For- 
tunately, he was old and ill; and did not dare to undertake 
what he might have had, — a third term. 

The first serious problem was financial readjustment. The 
little local banks had beaten the big Bank with its branches. 
The threatened money monopoly could not be realized. Jack- 
son now undertook to withdraw the government deposits from 
the National Bank and to place them in more or less ap- 
propriate sums in the local banks. There was no warrant 
of law for him to do this. The charter would not expire 
until 1836. 

Andrew Jackson, LL. D., of Harvard. — The Deposits. 
- — In 1833 Andrew Jackson in a triumphal progress through 
New England was granted the degree of LL. D. by Harvard 
College. The Indian fighter was now a Doctor of Laws of 
our oldest, most venerated university. From Boston he wrote 
to his Secretary of the Treasury, William J. Duane, an argu- 
ment regarding the right to remove the deposits. Taney also 
urged this. By various Acts of Congress, the Secretary of the 
Treasury reports directly to the House of Representatives.^ 
Duane refused to obey the orders of President Jackson and 

^See Article I, Section 7, U. S. Constitution. 



344 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

refused also to resign. On September 23, Jackson removed 
him from oflfice and transferred Taney to the Treasury. Duane 
now found himself, to quote his own words, "ostracized, dis- 
owned, outlawed on all sides." Taney obeyed; and there was 
a financial panic. Nine million one hundred thousand dollars 
Were transferred in the next few months to twenty-three small 
local banks. Even so, the National Bank still had $5 1 ,000,000 
on deposit. So powerful was it in Congress that it was able 
to prevent the confirmation by the Senate of the appointment 
of Taney as Secretary of the Treasury. 

Taney Rewarded with Chief Justiceship. — But in July, 
1835, Chief Justice Marshall died, and after a long contest the 
President forced the Senate to accept Taney as head of the 
Supreme Court.^ He was then fifty-nine years old. 

The Pitiful End of "Nick" Biddle. — Breaking the 
National Bank was not an error. Its President spent $400,000 
in buying a charter through the Pennsylvania Legislature. It 
failed in the commercial crisis of 1837; again in 1839; and 
was ruined by February 4, 1841, Nicholas Biddle died in 
1844, insolvent, broken-hearted and barely escaping conviction 
for plundering the Bank. It was a pitiful ending to a brilliant, 
dangerous, and toward the end criminal, career. 

Decentralized and localized banking conditions have un- 
questionably tended to the upbuilding of new sections and to 
the self-reliance of the American people. 

The President Censured. — In January, 1834, by a small 
majority. Clay carried in the Senate a resolution of censure 
upon the President for his actions in respect to the government 
deposits, which were declared to be without warrant of statute. 
He would like to have carried the House for impeachment, but 
the House was Jacksonian. 

The Cabinet Changed Again. — The final Cabinet of 
Jackson consisted of these members, viz. : 

State, — John Forsyth, who had succeeded Louis McLane, 
the fourth incumbent. 

Treasury, — Levi Woodbury, the fifth incumbent. 

War, — Benjamin F. Butler (of New York), the third in- 
cumbent. 

Attorney-General, — Benjamin F. Butler (of New York), 
the third incumbent. 

Postmaster-General, — ^Amos Kendall, the second incumbent. 

*See pp. 418-419, infra. 



ANDREW JACKSON 345 

Navy, — Mahlon Dickerson, the third incumbent. 

The history of the Secretaryship of the Treasury told where 
Jackson waged war upon actual corruption in Congress and 
a legalized banking "trust." 

The Surplus. — In 1836, with the public debt all paid, the 
United States Treasury had $40,000,000 surplus on hand. By 
a vote of 5 to I, Congress gave it away to the States, inflating 
tremendously the bank funds, and over-stimulating business. 
Much of this money was squandered by the States and the 
counties among which some States divided their shares. A 
large surplus is a curse to a nation. 

Intrinsic Money. — In 1834, public lands were sold to the 
amount of $4,800,000; in 1835, $14,700,000; in 1836, $24,- 
800,000. Land speculators organized banks, got them ap- 
pointed government depositories, and floated paper currency 
notes. Senator Benton of Missouri, known as "Old Bullion," 
tried to get a strictly gold and silver currency; and in 1836 
Jackson ordered that only gold, silver and land scrip should be 
taken for public lands. His last official act as President was 
to refuse to sign a bill annulling his specie circular; he sent 
it back to the State Department March 3, 1837, at 11.45 P. M. 
It was one of his best official actions. In January, 1837, after 
a lapse of three years, Benton carried that remarkable resolu- 
tion to expunge Clay's censure of 1834. It was clearly futile 
and contrary to fundamental reason; but it pleased "Old 
Hero" mightily. The past is, however, adamant; and the 
censure is a fact. 

In Retirement at "The Hermitage." — The successor of 
Jackson was his personal choice, Martin Van Buren, for whom 
few others cared. In retirement, he still exercised much in- 
fluence from "The Hermitage." In 1844, he dropped Van 
Buren and urged the movement to nominate Polk of his own 
State, because of his attitude regarding Texas. Shortly after 
the defeat of Clay, he died of slow consumption June 8, 1845, 
being then seventy-eight years of age and leaving a memory 
of the most extraordinary personal success ever achieved in 
American politics. 

His estate was small, and was disposed of by will in legacies, 
public and private. 

Democracy an Experiment. — In a certain sense, every 



346 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

son of man is sui generis, unique. But iVndrew Jackson was 
unique in the sense that he was more unHke each and every 
other President than any other differed from his predecessors 
and successors. Many of our Presidents have had distinctive 
characteristics, even distinctive characters. Of all Presidents, 
he was the most colorful. The nearest approach to him was 
Roosevelt; yet Roosevelt is more like even Buchanan than he 
was like Jackson. 

Spectacular, pyrotechnic, catastrophic, almost cataclysmic, 
Andrew Jackson led the new people out of the last palace halls 
of the old aristocratic order of society according to convention 
and tradition and into the breezy, rude, rich, perilous wilder- 
ness of equality according to Nature, — which, be it understood, 
is no assertion that all men are created equal. With him, 
privilege was driven to the defensive in America until its last 
fortress is taken, and it dies forever. It is a wilderness of 
give and take; of swim your own weight and load, or sink; 
of hold your own, face front, whatever the odds, or perish. 

Such democracy is a magnificent, dangerous, soul-absorbing 
experiment. Within every reform in American history, within 
every aspiration for change, there lives the spirit of Andrew 
Jackson, as it were, the energetic Jean Jacques Rousseau of 
American politics. 



CHAPTER VIII 
Martin Van Buren 

1837-1841 
I 782-1862 

26 States 1840 — Population 17.069,453 

Extraordinary friendship with Aaron Burr — early life — leader of the 
bar — marriage — State Senator — puts an end to imprisonment for debt 
— and to estates tail — opposes Burr for governorship — political proscrip- 
tions — British system of office-holding — rotation in office — Van Buren 
a pastmaster of small politics — supports War of 1812 — New York 
State Attorney-General — the Bucktails — anti-slavery — United States 
Senator — member State Constitutional Convention — a reform leader-— 
a high protective tariff unstable — tries to restore original meaning of 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 347 

Electoral College — votes against occupation of Oregon — the Albany 
Regency — anent circuit duties of Supreme Court — a civil service re- 
former — Governor of New York — progressive — Secretary of State — 
right hand man of Jackson — minister to England — meets Washington 
Irving — appointment opposed by Clay, Webster, Calhoun and Hayne— 
made Vice-President by outrage — ^price paid by President — Panic of 
1837 — tremendous economic changes — rhapsody by Clay in Senate — 
independent treasury bill — specie payment resumed in 1839 — cotton 
and Texas — loses renomination because of two-thirds rule — log cabin 
campaign low grade — tour of South — Free Soilers nominate Van 
Buren — in i860 supports Douglas — compared with Madison — personal 
appearance — a decentralizationist and an exponent of freedom — in 
office blameless in all great matters. 

His Alliance with Jackson and with Burr. — Martin 
Van Buren, who was neither renominated by a great party nor 
reelected, is one of the problems of American historical scholar- 
ship. One of the unknown factors in the problem is how far 
he influenced and how far he was influenced by Andrew Jack- 
son. Another factor seeks to account for the close sympathy 
between himself and Aaron Burr. Van Buren was born on 
December 5, 1782; Burr in 1756, being then twenty-six years 
old. 

Van Buren's reputed father was a farmer and an inn- 
keeper. His mother was a second wife. Burr was a boarder 
there for the year previous to Martin Van Buren's birth. The 
striking similarity of the two in appearance, and in character 
and ability, the inferiority and dissimilarity of the other Van 
Buren children, the reputation of Burr with women and the 
extraordinary affection that Martin all his life felt for Aaron 
Burr gave rise to significant opinions regarding them, — which 
reported circumstances seem to bear out. 

Fair Elementary Education. — Lawyer. — After a fair 
elementary schooling and a brief period in Kinderhook Acad- 
emy, Martin Van Buren at fourteen years of age began his 
law-studies at Kinderhook under Francis Sylvester. Six years 
later he went to New York to study with W. P. Van Ness, an 
opportunity secured for him by Aaron Burr, then Vice-Presi- 
dent. In i8o3_, at his majority, he became partner at Kinder- 
hook with his older half-brother on his mother's side, J. J. 
Van Alen. He became very successful ; by 1808 was surrogate 
of his county, Columbia; and soon became known as the leader 



348 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

of the Republican side of the bar. There were plenty of law- 
suits, — involving old rights, feuds, estates/ The ancient 
patroon land-system was going to pieces, the Dutch families 
to whom Van Buren belonged were having a hard time to 
hold their own against the newcomers, and democracy had 
set in. 

Marriage. — Four Sons. — In 1807, Van Buren married 
Hannah Hoes, a kinswoman of his mother's and a friend smce 
childhood. It was a marriage of but twelve years, when his 
wife died, leaving four sons. Van Buren lived forty-three 
years, never marrying again. He had seen enough of fami- 
lies with stepmothers and two sets of half-brothers and half- 
sisters. 

.State Senator and Judge. — In 181 3, the young lawyer, 
already foremost at the bar, became State Senator and as such, 
under the New York Constitution, a member of the court of 
errors, in the fashion of the British House of Lords, wherein 
the hand of Alexander Hamilton, born a British subject, was 
displayed. Theoretically, Van Buren became a lay- judge. In 
181 5, he became State Attorney-General also, holding the office 
four years. 

He removed to Albany, a city then of but ten thousand in- 
habitants, and there he made his headquarters until, in 1829, 
Jackson appointed him Secretary of State. Benjamin F. 
Butler, a man of high personal distinction, became his law 
partner. 

Ends Imprisonment for Debt. — The services of Martin 
Van Buren in the development of American liberties included 
no less a matter than, as a judge of the court of errors, helping 
to get rid of imprisonment for debt, that monstrous absurdity 
now in the limbo of the past. What a far cry it was from this 
jailing of debtors to our present national bankruptcy, in which 
North Carolina, years before, had taken the lead! In this 
decision in 1813, Van Buren opposed the famous jurist. Chan- 
cellor James Kent. Another similar service was rendered in 
1823, when being of counsel with Aaron Burr and a United 
States Senator, in the Medcef Eden case, he helped break 
down "estates tail." Such estates tie up land, are the defence 

*Cf. the early days of Patrick Henry in Virginia, p. 137, supra, and of 
John Adams of Massachusetts, p. 244, supra. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 349 

of primogeniture and of social inequality, and do not comport 
with American liberty. This work of his was like that of 
Jefferson in Virginia. 

The End of the Political Career of Aaron Burr. — 
The first test of the strength of the character of Martin Van 
Buren came in the political contest of 1804 when Burr, who 
had unsuccessfully intrigued for the Presidency, ran for gov- 
ernor against Morgan Lewis, candidate of the Clintons and 
Livingstons, who virtually owned the offices of New York 
State. Despite his never-to-be-broken personal friendship for 
Burr, Van Buren voted the Lewis ticket. Like many another 
pair of friends, they dreamed of controlling both parties, but 
this defeat, largely due to the killing of Hamilton that summer, 
closed Burr's political career. 

Political Proscriptions. — Then followed the period when 
New York State learned the trick of discharging political 
enemies from office. Clintonians proscribed the Federalists, 
and Federalists the Clintonians. Van Buren suffered as did 
all other officeholders. The spoils system arose in a State 
of limited suffrage, — no man could vote for governor or 
senator unless possessing a freehold of £100 value, or for 
assemblymen unless possessing a freehold of £20 value or pay- 
ing yearly rent of forty shillings and being an actual taxpayer, 
not merely an heir or co-tenant. Great family interests, not 
democratic partisanship, established rotation in office in New 
York State.^ 

Rotation in Office versus Vested Rights. — Rotation in 
office is the extreme contrast with the British view of vested 
right to office, even of the rights of inheritance, of sale, and 
of bequest of office. 

In England, government offices were usually private prop- 
erty, and religious offices were universally such. We made 
both kinds merely temporary services. In the European sense, 
our governors are not officers, nor are our ministers such, but 
servants. And yet in some sections of New England, church 
pews are still "real estate" and as such heritable and alienable. 
And in various cities, even States, the boss may secure prop- 
erty in many offices and distribute them by sale or by favor to 
his henchmen. But compared with European prices for offices, 
ours are cheap. 

*See p. 331. supra. 



350 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Americans were then Jacks of all Trades. — The second 
and third decades of the nineteenth century constituted the 
end of a different age from ours. There were few experts 
and fewer specialists. Nearly all Americans were still farmers 
or farm laborers, which meant that they did a hundred things 
besides what we now call "farming." Most of the rest were 
merchants and clerks, handling usually imported goods. Only 
a few were manufacturers and mechanics, or miners, or sailors. 
England had won the sea-trade. Our own people were all- 
around men, who went easily from farm or store to political 
office, and back again ; we were not generally so laborious and 
efficient as now, though we kept longer hours. Few men had 
learned some one thing so well that they had no time to learn 
a little of everything. Rotation in office paralleled rotation in 
business. 

Men of the type still survive who keep a hotel, run a 
farm, serve as town clerk, sell automobiles, edit a paper, — 
do whatever comes to hand promising well. In the old days, 
the offices themselves were not specialized as they are now. 
Then a young fellow taught school, groomed horses, kept 
store accounts, ran a postoffice, shingled a house, tended a 
garden, as luck decided. But all girls stayed home and did 
housework and light farm chores. 

"Little Van" a Pastmaster of Small Politics. — In this 
new business of using small offices to help out supporters of 
himself and party for the great offices "Little Van," as Martin 
Van Buren was generally known, quickly became a pastmaster. 
He had a winning personality, adroitness, industry and 
loyalty. 

A War of 1812 Jingoist. — In 181 2, as Senator, he voted 
against the Madison electors, and for DeWitt Clinton. It 
was a curious move. Most of the Federalists voted with him. 
Clinton carried the Legislature and, of course, the Electoral 
College. Would Clinton have made a better President than 
Madison? — it was at the beginning of the War of 1812.^ 
Soon afterwards, Clinton and Van Buren became hostile to 
one another. Van Buren was an enthusiastic advocate of 
strong war measures, — of stronger measures than President 
Madison and Congress ever adopted, but he saw no military 
service himself. In 181 4, under his leadership. New York 
State voted 12,000 soldiers for two years, 2000 men as 

^See p. 286, supra. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 351 

"fencibles" to protect the seacoast, and 2000 negroes as sol- 
diers, provided that their masters would set them free. This 
bill was drafted by "M. V. B." in his own hand and filed 
proudly by him as "a memento of the patriotism, intelligence 
and firmness of the legislature," — to quote his own words en- 
dorsed thereon and preserved in the archives of the State until 
the great fire of the Capitol in May, 191 1. 

State Attorney-General. — The Republicans now had 
two heroes, — "the sage of Monticello" and "the hero of New 
Orleans" ; and New York State had its admitted political 
guide, Martin Van Buren, whom it made Attorney-General. A 
few months later he became also a member of the Board of 
Regents of the University of the State of New York, a euphu- 
istic name for the body controlling all New York higher 
educational institutions. 

The Bucktails. — The details of the life of Martin Van 
Buren for the next few years belong rather to New York 
State history than to personal biography. He helped to get 
the Erie Canal bill through the Legislature in 181 7. He was 
a Tompkins adherent, opposing Clinton usually. As such, he 
was a "Bucktail," so named from the tail of deer worn at 
ceremonies by the opponents of Clinton. Tammany Hall was 
"Bucktail." The Tompkins men became the true Democrats 
of the regular party organization and traditional line. In 
this period rose Thurlow Weed, one of the most famous New 
York politicians, — an opponent of Van Buren. In 1820 Van 
Buren, though a man of party affiliations, often an indepen- 
dent, supported the Federalist Rufus King for reelection as 
United States Senator, who was successful. King voted 
against admitting Missouri as a slave State; and Van Buren 
paved the way for this by calling a public meeting in Albany 
to protest against slavery in any part of the territory beyond 
the Mississippi. 

Two Great Honors. — In February, 1821, Martin Van 
Buren became United States Senator. It was his lucky month ! 
Half of all his great honors were voted to him in that month. 
Before going to Washington, he sat as member in the State 
constitutional convention, which, despite the prophecy of 
Chancellor Kent who declared "universal suffrage" a "delu- 
sion" that posterity will "deplore in sackcloth and ashes," took 
the control of government out of the hands of the owners of 



35^ LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

land, and decentralized administration, then too closely 
directed from Albany. Van Buren was the leader for wider 
suffrage and the dispersion of governmental powers and 
for reducing the number of officers appointed by State 
authority. 

Judges are Men. — In this convention, he performed the 
genuine service of arguing that judges are not less open to 
improper influences than other men; the strange belief that 
though born of the same parents as the rest of us, they are 
both incorruptible and irreproachable still persists in some 
quarters. The truth is that judges are men; Van Buren was 
right and rendered a service in saying so. The new Constitu- 
tion was adopted by the freeholders themselves by a vote of 
75,000 to 41,500. What a strange notion that property qualifies 
for voting. Spending property for knowledge, therefore, 
disqualifies. 

Tends Toward Strict Construction of the Constitu- 
tion. — As a Senator, Van Buren made a notable but not a 
great record. He was astute and often brave, but never daring. 
His political opinions and course of action gradually changed 
from regular protectionism upon the tariff to as little incidental 
protection as possible and from liberality in matters of internal 
improvement anywhere and everywhere to no internal im- 
provements, but only coastal river and harbor improve- 
ments. He came to see that men cannot legislate a high pro- 
tective tariff into a state of stable equilibrium and that it 
always builds up special interests, — a national card-house 
structure full of perils to all occupants and in itself as essen- 
tially wrong as slavery.^ As to internal improvements, he 
saw that these are matters of intra-State or inter-State 
enterprise. 

Would Reconvene the Electoral College. — He voted 
unavailingly to prevent the free admission of slaves into^ 
Florida, hoping that the system would never cover our South- 
ernmost State. This was one of the errors ( ?) that cost him a 
reelection to the Presidency, when the Jackson fever of the 
public had quieted down; and men began once more to con- 
sider measures and issues, forgetting heroes. He was a sup- 
porter of that magnificent man, physically considered, William 
H. Crawford, whose breakdown in health from overwork and 

*See p. 169, supra. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 353 

bad climate in Washington was the main cause of his loss of 
the Presidency to J. Q. Adams in -tS^. i^'; ■' - 

Van Buren tried to secure a national law to abolish imprison- 
ment for debt, seeing that such imprisonment is as futile as it is 
wicked. He sought so to amend the Constitution that when 
the electors fail upon their sealed ballots, they should re- 
convene. This amendment was probably the true meaning 
according to the fathers of the Constitution. We have mechan- 
ized, even automatized, a process that Madison, Mason, Ham- 
ilton and their colleagues meant to be deliberate and intelligent 
and rational. The plan of Van Buren, if successfully worked 
out, would have made great changes in later history. 

He was no imperialist and voted against the occupation of 
Oregon by the United States, ranging himself against his two 
senatorial friends, Benton of Missouri and Jackson of Ten- 
nessee. It was a vote that betrayed the limitations of his 
mind. 

The Albany Regency. — For some time, now he had been 
a founder and main member of what was called "the Albany 
regency," a group of ten or a dozen active, shrewd, skillful poli- 
ticians of perhaps the better type who meant to run New York 
State. And he was becoming the founder of National Democ- 
racy which as a machine lasts to this day. He was collecting 
together the men whom Jackson was to arouse to perfervid 
and almost senseless enthusiasm; and he was forming the 
issues in politics for many years to come. 

Opposes Pan-American Congress. — Van Buren opposed 
the first Congress at Panama,'- asserting that it would lead to 
an unconstitutional alliance with all Spanish America and 
might provoke Europe to make war upon us. In this opposi- 
tion he was supported ably by Henry Y. Hayne of South Caro- 
lina on the ground that the South Americans were part 
Spanish, part Indian, part Negro, and wholly inferior to the 
Caucasians of the United States. By delaying, they won. 

Let Judges Go Among the People. — When Marshall and 
his colleagues of the Supreme Court sought to be relieved of 
circuit duty. Van Buren defeated them, arguing that strong 
judges sitting always en banc can conceal the weaknesses of 
their associates, and that all judges need to go out among the 
people. He feared the growing bureaucratic pride of the 

*See p. 315, supra. 



354 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

judicial and executive branches of officers if always resident in 
Washington ; and here he was clearly right. 

Civil Service Reformer. — Early in the administration of 
J. Q. Adams, with Benton, he made an exhaustive report upon 
the civil service. Some plans were excellent, others bad. 
Among the good plans was service during good behavior in 
many offices; among the bad, was distribution of patronage 
among Congressmen. The report was not accepted; and yet 
it serves as a landmark in the history of the civil service. 

Governor of New York. — The service of Van Buren as 
Senator ended in 1828. Webster came into the Senate in 1827. 
Van Buren had been an excellent parliamentarian, was a good 
speaker and mfluential in getting business done; and he had 
grown in knowledge of men and of issues. But he had not yet 
stood the test of a popular election. No man is really strong in 
American politics until he has been up for nomination and 
election to office and has won. The death of Governor DeWitt 
Clinton in office gave the opportunity. Van Buren was nomi- 
nated by the Bucktails for the governorship. The vote was : 

Democrats 137,000, National Republicans (Adams men), 
106,500, and anti-Masons 33,500. 

Little Van Becomes Jackson^s Heir. — ^Van Buren had 
almost a clear majority. Jackson now declared that this meant 
a desire on the part of the people for Van Buren to be next 
to the President. In early days, to be next to the President 
was to be Vice-President ; but when Thomas Jefferson came in, 
— 1 80 1, — American politics had given that honor to the Secre- 
tary of State. 

A Reform Governor of Ten Weeks. — Van Buren was in- 
augurated Governor January i, 1829, and sent to the legis- 
lature one of the best gubernatorial messages in the history of 
New York and indeed of all the States. He favored internal 
improvements at State cost ; and advocated independent private 
banks under State supervision, including the State guarantee 
system. These for some years have been established in Okla- 
homa and neighboring States, and declared constitutional by the 
U. S. Supreme Court in 191 1. Van Buren also advocated sepa- 
ration of State and national elections; attacked the use of 
money in elections ; took liberal views as to the duties of legis- 
lators, condemning "jealousy of the exercise of delegated poli- 
tical power" and "too rigid and scrupulous economy" as "indi- 
cations of a contracted spirit unbecoming the character of the 
statesman" ; showed up relentlessly the viciousness of the mud- 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 355 

slinging that had fouled the Jackson- Adams campaign of 
1828;^ and declared that the election of 1828 was a triumph of 
sound and admirable public opinion. 

As governor, Van Buren made excellent appointments to 
office, naming even vigorous political opponents; and then, 
March 12th, he resigned to become Secretary of State in Jack- 
son's administration. 

Secretary of State. — The story of the two years' service 
of Van Buren as Cabinet leader is the story of the early days 
of Jackson as President. He was the first politician of the 
party. John C. Calhoun had tried to prevent his appointment ; 
and later, when Jackson discovered that in the administration 
of J. Q. Adams, Calhoun had recommended a court-martial 
for "Old Hickory" in the case of the missionaries to the 
Georgia Indians,^ the fiery old leader turned upon the Vice- 
President to his final undoing. To Andrew Jackson, we owe 
the breaking of the power of the most brilliant statesman the 
South ever produced. In the unfortunate affairs of Mrs. 
Eaton, who by alleged infidelity was held by the Washington 
women responsible for her first husband's suicide,^ Van Buren 
as a widower with four grown sons was able to pursue an easy 
course. He made a formal call upon her, — which pleased Gen- 
eral Jackson and could not be censured by the social leaders. 

He served in the Cabinet but two years when he resigned 
with the frank statement that he was a candidate for the suc- 
cession, — which meant a candidate against Calhoun and Clay 
either in 1832 or in 1836, as Jackson, who was in poor health, 
might decide. By this time, the policy of the new Democratic 
party in respect to the protective tariff and to internal improve- 
ments had been determined. James A. Hamilton, one of the 
eight children of Alexander Hamilton, founder of Federalism, 
helped Jackson and Van Buren formulate these doctrines in 
State papers. It is one of many striking instances that show 
that Andrew Jackson was a remarkably good judge of men 
for his purposes. 

A Perfectly Frank Office-Seeker Revealed. — Here is 
a passage in a letter from Samuel Swartwout to Lorenzo Hoyt, 
"No damned rascal who made use of his office or its profits for 
the purpose of keeping Mr. Adams in, and General Jackson 

*See p. 318, supra. *See p. 327, supra. 'See pp. 333, 334, supra. 



356 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

out, is entitled to the least lenity or mercy, save that of hang- 
ing. . . . Whether or not I shall get anything in the gen- 
eral scramble for plunder remains to be proven; but I rather 
guess I shall." He did. He became collector of customs at 
New York ; and a few years later was a defaulter for a million 
dollars. 

Minister to England and the Outrage. — In the summer 
of 1 83 1, Jackson sent Van Buren as minister to England. It 
was a strangely delightful experience with a rude termination. 
The new Minister found Washington Irving as charge 
d'affaires. It was the beginning of what was a friendship for 
the rest of their lives. They travelled through the beautiful 
"Lake Country" together in an open carriage and saw all the 
other famous scenes of middle and north England. Upon 
their return. Van Buren found himself the guest upon many 
occasions in many households and social affairs hitherto not 
open to American diplomats. But in February, 1832, there 
was a violent awakening, — the Senate had refused to confirm 
the recess appointment by the President.^ Van Buren was now 
to test the question whether or not it is an advantage to a 
public man to be the subject of an outrage. In March, he dined 
with the king, William IV, at Windsor, who graciously said to 
him : "Detraction and misrepresentation are the common lot 
of all public men." And then after a short trip upon the Con- 
tinent, he returned to New York, arriving early in July. Clay, 
Webster, and Hayne had opposed his confirmation. Webster 
based his opposition upon an admission of Van Buren's in a 
negotiation with the British ministry that a part of the Ameri- 
can claims were not justifiable. Said Webster: "In the pres- 
ence of foreign courts, amidst the monarchies of Europe, an 
American minister is to stand up for his country." He said 
that he hoped his own speech would be heard in the defence of 
everything American "by every minister and crowned head 
in Europe." It was a foolish opposition. No sane and well- 
informed citizens ever believed that General Jackson could or 
would send a minister abroad to toady to European kings, 
Vice-President Calhoun declared of the rejection: "It will 
kill him, sir, kill him dead. He will never kick, sir, never 
kick." But Senator Benton was wiser, — he affirmed: "You 
have broken a minister and elected a Vice-President." 

Vice-President. — A few days after his return from Eng- 

^S«« pp. 15* 156, supra. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 357 

land, the Democratic party nominated Van Buren as Vice- 
President by a vote of nearly three to one upon the first ballot. 
It was this convention that adopted the two-thirds rule so 
unfortunate for Van Buren twelve years later/ Jackson and 
Van Buren were triumphantly elected, securing seven-twelfths 
of all the votes cast,^ and winning in the Electoral College by 
four to one. 

Powerful and Popular. — No other Vice-President, 
before or since, was ever so near to the President as Van 
Buren was to Jackson. And no other Vice-President ever 
had so great influence in the Senate. No other Vice-President 
was ever unanimously nominated for the Presidency upon the 
withdrawal or death of his chief. It was a long Presidential 
campaign, lasting a year and a half. There was no Democratic 
platform, but late in the canvass, in August, Van Buren wrote 
a letter in which he set forth his policies. He believed that any 
distribution of a surplus of Federal Government funds was 
unconstitutional. Here he was directly in opposition to Jack- 
son himself. His view was not only legally correct but 
economically expedient.^ For the States to draw from the 
nation would be to weaken and debauch them while vastly 
strengthening the central government ; it would set up the rela- 
tion of paupers and prince.* He opposed dividing among the 
States the proceeds from the sales of public lands in which 
sheer speculation for profits was rife. He opposed improving 
navigable rivers above the ports of entry at National cost. He 
declared that a National Bank was unconstitutional. Let "the 
national government confine itself to the creation of coin." He 
defended expunging the censure upon President Jackson. 

Players of Politics. — In another letter, he defended slav- 
ery in the District of Columbia as inevitable because it was a 
small section between two slave States. For the folly of its 
location^ and the crime of its social condition Alexander Ham- 
ilton was responsible, not Martin Van Buren. As Vice-Presi- 
dent, he had given his casting vote in favor of excluding anti- 
slavery documents from the mail. And yet as a man, like 
Washington and Jefferson, Van Buren hated slavery. As a 
politician, he necessarily endured it, — or would have lost the 

^For the vote, see p. 365, infra. *See p. 11, supra. 
*For the vote, see p, 331, supra, pp. 261, 262, supra. 
•See p. 345, supra. 



358 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Presidency. He stood upon a lower plane than John Quincy 
Adams in the House, and yet even Adams played politics often, 
indeed usually. He had to advocate high protection in order to 
keep in Congress. On this equally important question of a 
protective tariff, Van Buren was ethically right, and Adams 
wrong. 

President. — The election showed that certain enemies of 
Jackson and of Van Buren had gained ground. Two States 
where Old Hickory had always been strong, — Tennessee and 
Georgia, — voted for Hugh L. White, a Senator from Ten- 
nessee, who led a defection from the Democratic party. Van 
Buren made some gains in the North but lost many votes in 
the South. Massachusetts voted for Webster, her great Sen- 
ator. The votes in the Electoral College stood as follows, 
viz. : 

Van Buren 170, Harrison 73, White 26, Webster 14. 

The West had voted for Harrison.^ 

The Electoral College had failed to choose a Vice-Presi- 
dent. The Senate now chose from the candidates Richard 
M. Johnson, who had been Senator from Kentucky for ten 
years. He had been an Indian fighter with William Henry 
Harrison and was commonly distinguished as "the man who 
killed Tecumseh," but the fact was not proven. 

"The" Panic. — Martin Van Buren took Jackson's counsel 
and even maintained nearly all of his Cabinet of 1837 in 
office.^ He was the first President born after Yorktown and 
remembering nothing of colonial or Revolutionary War days. 
Sixty-one years had passed since the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. The new President looked forward to a happy, pros- 
perous, constructive administration. But the "Panic of 1837" 
then fell, — the worst panic in our history, — it was indeed "the" 
Panic. 

Its causes were more than one or two. They were complex, 
not simple. They were profound, not superficial. Some causes 
were psychological, other sociological in their nature. In 
truth, our ancestors were children needing to go to the school 
of experience. 

Tremendous Economic Changes. — In 1837, we had a bad 
financial system, — not worse than in the days of the deposits 

*See p. 371, infra. 'See p. 334 supra. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 359 

in the National Bank of the United States/ but bad. Through- 
out the West men were buying pubHc lands and paying for 
them with paper money borrowed on promissory notes from 
the local banks, — eighty of these local banks in various parts 
of the country were flush with funds from the recent deposits 
of National Government money. The total of this speculation 
was several hundred million dollars in a country with a popula- 
tion of about twenty million persons. The notes ran at high 
rates of interest, — from twelve per cent, up, — and the specu- 
lators in the lands did not work them, but held them for in- 
creases in value. Such increases appeared likely enough : fine 
lands changed hands at $1.25 per acre. But for nearly ten 
years, the speculation had run wild. And interest does not 
grow; it has to be earned by work. Nearly all the residents 
were debtors one to another and to creditors in the East. 
Debits and credits were the staple of business. Not much 
specie money passed. 

A Nation of Speculators. — Not all the speculation was 
in Western lands. There was much speculation in all parts 
of the country in town and city business and residence lots. 
Americans were lunatic with the discovery of the "unearned 
increment" and how to get it by means of paper titles to 
lands; they had not yet learned that the increment is earned 
by the working community, perhaps even by the owner him- 
self as an important factor in the community. Without labor 
and with appetite, there is loss, not gain. 

The loans were pyramided, with profits figured on paper. 
Farms and lots were sold — for notes — at apparent profits; 
and wealth — on paper — increased fabulously. Jackson had 
indeed seen through it all; he was a good business man, and 
keen for the fatal fallacy.^ 

Coincident with the rise of lands was the development of 
canals and the placing of steamboats upon the rivers. The 
canals built towns. The stocks of the steamboat companies 
became profitable. Men saw visions of easy wealth. They 
organized banks to finance navigation companies and land 
speculators. Hundreds of thousands of men who might have 
been farmers and as such producers of wealth, or mechanics 
and artisans, gave their days to commercial speculations and 

*See pp. 336-338, supra. "See pp. 344, 345, supra. 



36o LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

their nights to new dreams of increasing prosperity. Ordinary 
gambHng at cards and riotous living increased. Of necessaries 
of life, the production failed to keep pace with need; and their 
prices rose. Fast as settlers went into the West, they did not 
go fast enough to match with articles of value through labor 
the paper documents of value through hope. We are in the 
same kind of epoch now, though the gambling is in different 
terms. 

Bread- RIOT in New York. — On February 14, 1837, the 
Jackson Jacobins met in front of the New York City Hall 
and cried : "Bread, meat, rent, fuel. Their prices must come 
down." 

The crashes that brought the panic were several. On Janu- 
ary I, 1837, $9,367,000 of the treasury surplus for distribution 
to the States had to be taken from the deposit banks ; this was 
real money. Loans had to be called in, and specie secured. 
The country lived through that. On April i, a similar distri- 
bution took place. In the meantime, there had been financial 
trouble in England. With this was connected the fact that 
some Americans as they grew rich,' — often only on paper, — 
bought heavily of English goods ; and England had to be paid 
in gold and silver. By April 11, New York City had seen 128 
failures, one-fourth being those of real estate speculators, 
nearly one-half of wholesalers, jobbers and commission mer- 
chants, the worst being failures of foreign and local bankers 
and brokers. And prices started down fast. Everything came 
down, — rent, wages, bread, meat. Cotton fell from 20^ to 
10^ per pound. Fortunes melted like snow in a chinook in 
Idaho. 

Whereupon, fifty merchants as a committee went to Wash- 
ington and told the President that he must stop asking coin 
for the public lands ! He must accept paper. Like drunkards, 
they proposed more whiskey as a cure. 

In May, the banks of the country everywhere stopped specie 
payment. And bankruptcy prevailed in every city, town, vil- 
lage and hamlet. It was a terrible summer for millions out 
of work for want of employers with capital to pay them 
wages, being too poor to work upon their own lands with their 
own tools as independent producers. 

A Characteristic Rhapsody by Clay. — Van Buren called 
a special meeting of Congress for September and sent in one 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 361 

of the ablest State papers in our history, asserting that it is 
not the business of government either to repair private losses 
or to seek to improve private fortunes. In this paper, he 
outlined the scheme of an independent treasury, such as we 
have now had for many years, and happily so. Webster, Clay 
and the business classes denounced his propositions. The Ken- 
tuckian exclaimed rapturously, — "people, States, Union, banks, 
. all entitled to the protecting care of a paternal gov- 
ernment." It is the child's view of a world with demigods in 
it, — the ignorant man's notion that government is a thing apart 
from us, a notion derived from days before government be- 
came "by the people" themselves, part and parcel "of them." 
No "parental government" can be good "for the people" since 
it keeps them forever under tutelage. The independent treas- 
ury bill passed the Senate but was defeated in the House by 
120 to 106. Van Buren was successful, however, in blocking 
any further payments to the States of the once existent 
"surplus." He won against Clay and Webster in the Senate 
by 28 to 17 and against J. Q. Adams in the House, by 118 to 
105. The only concession that Van Buren made to the needs 
of the times was to recommend the issuance of $10,000,000 in 
interest bearing treasury notes, none smaller than $50.^ These 
were paid to government creditors because the government 
could not get cash from its own debtors. They were not fiat 
money or greenbacks but publicly admitted debts. Non-in- 
trinsic or paper or fiat money is really debt denied and con- 
cealed from the eyes of the foolish and simple. It is a false 
pretence, whereby something is gotten for nothing,^ 

Urges an Independent Treasury. — Again and again in 
his messages to Congress, Van Buren urged the independent 
treasury plan. At last, in 1840, Congress passed the bill in 
each House by small majorities ; and the divorce of bank and 
government was complete. Thereby, Hamilton's plan of bank- 
ing was buried, let us hope, forever. 

Specie Payment Resumed. — The plans of Van Buren re- 
specting the panic had worked so well with the natural laws of 
the present economic regime of interest, rent, wages and taxes 
that by April, 1838, in a convention of all the important banks, 

^See pp. 540, 541, infra. 

"See pp. 88, 89, supra; also the Greenback party, pp. 118, 119, suprQ,_ 



362 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

the business community resolved to resume specie payment for 
New York in May and gradually to cover all the country so 
that by January i, 1839, the whole situation should be that of 
sound money. It was a working out of the plans of Senator 
Benton of Missouri; and a victory for the Loco Focos and 
Equal Rights men of New York. 

If the United States Bank under Nicholas Biddle had been 
properly managed, the country's prosperity would have been 
perfectly restored by 1840 and Van Buren would have been re- 
elected President. But Biddle's United States Bank of Penn- 
sylvania failed in a crashing ruin.^ 

The Rebellion in Canada. — In 1837, by a vote of seven 
to one, Parliament in England overruled the Lower Houses of 
each of the Canadian Provinces in a serious matter of taxation. 
A less serious act of tyranny from overseas occasioned the 
American Revolution. Lower Canada revolted, but the revolt 
was suppressed within a month. Toronto revolted but was 
subdued. Many refugees fled into New York State and tried 
to get support in their rebellion. On December 29, 1839, a 
Canadian force invaded the United States, captured the rebels' 
steamer, the "Caroline," and sent it blazing with fire down 
Niagara. Of course, the rebels had violated the neutrality 
laws ; and President Van Buren dealt with the situation accord- 
ingly. In what he did, he was supported by the great majority 
both of Americans and of Canadians. 

In 1838, the land system of the United States was changed 
into preemption by actual settlers. Here Webster and Clay 
split, Webster following the Van Buren policy. It was a most 
fortunate change. 

Osceola. — Finally to clear the Indians out of Florida and 
to put the survivors into the Indian Territory, cost $14,000,000 
and years of effort and bloodshed. Their leader, a half-breed 
named Powell, calling himself "Osceola," was taken with a 
flag of truce and dishonorably sent to Fort Moultrie in Charles- 
ton harbor where he soon died, — after speeches regarding his 
Indian forebears that rang through the country and will ring 
through the ages. The story of the Seminoles and of Osceola, 
together with the great costs of the war of ambuscades and 
assassination, added another burden of unpopularity to Van 
Buren, 

And there was the old yet ever fresh trouble over the Maine- 

^See p. 344, supra. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 363 

New Brunswick boundary; and the Maine frontiersmen did not 
like the disposition of Van Buren to settle it by arbitration. 
Congress voted 50,000 volunteers and $10,000,000 of money 
for war. 

More Financial Troubles. — In 1840, cotton fell to five 
cents a pound. Hundreds of plantations were abandoned, and 
their owners took the slaves and moved outside of the United 
States into Texas. There were wide fluctuations in interna- 
tional trade. In October, 1840, the Philadelphia banks again 
suspended. A few days later, Baltimore and many Western 
cities watched their banks go down like cards in a row. 

Van Buren had seen the national expenses of 1839 reduced 
by $6,000,000 under those of 1838; and $11,000,000 more cut 
off in 1840. He saw now the grave crisis when the control 
of the House of Representatives turned upon the validity of 
the election of five New Jersey Congressmen. The Demo- 
crats finally seated their men, probably with right upon their 
side. 

The Cabinet. — Toward the end of his administration, there 
were a few Cabinet changes so that the membership stood : 

State, — John Forsyth of Georgia. 

Treasury, — Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire. 

War, — Joel Poinsett of South Carolina. 

Attorney-General, — Henry D. Gilpin of Pennsylvania, who 
had succeeded Felix Grundy of Tennessee. 

Postmaster-General, — John M. Niles of Connecticut. 

Navy,— James K. Paulding of New York. 

The first three served throughout the administration, Grundy 
two years and Niles three years. 

Van Buren evidently got along well with his ofificial house- 
hold ; but it did not contain any man of exceptional ability or 
reputation. 

Whig Politics. — In December, 1839, ten long months 
before many of the State elections, the Whigs nominated Wil- 
liam Henry Harrison, taking Tyler of Virginia to balance the 
ticket and to secure Southern votes. Thurlow Weed, the 
shrewdest politician New York State ever produced, had 
thrown Clay aside and taken General Harrison because he 
was "available" and "tractable." They said only the first, but 
they meant the second also; and they adopted no platform 



364 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

lest some planks in it alienate some voters, other planks other 
voters, and so on until the election should be lost. To win, — 
that was their one aim. Winning meant getting into office. 

Van Buren Stands on Solid Platform. — The Demo- 
cratic convention met in May, 1840, at Baltimore, and adopted 
a straightforward platform opposing the deposit of public 
moneys in private banks, internal improvement paid from 
National revenues, National assumption of State debts, help- 
ing some industries at the expense of all others, — a policy 
known as a protective tariff, — and a National Bank. It sup- 
ported slavery, and denounced the abolitionists. Van Buren 
himself favored the gag rule that Adams denounced. 

It is wrong to judge Van Buren or the Democrats in the 
light of these later times. General Harrison himself hastened 
to deny the "slander" that he was an abolitionist, and to say 
that he favored slavery in the District of Columbia until Vir- 
ginia and Maryland emancipated their slaves. 

The Low Grade Presidential Campaign. — It was the 
lowest grade Presidential campaign in American history. The 
nation, Clay asserted, was "like the ocean when convulsed by 
some terrible storm." There was a cry for "change" voiced 
most loudly by Daniel Webster himself.^ "The log cabin, 
hard cider whirlwind" was upon the nation. There were 
hitherto unknown public processions with log cabins, coon- 
skins, cider, barrels, banners, torches, and songs. 

"Tippecanoe 
And Tyler, too," 
was cried everywhere. 

Defeated. — The Electoral College vote was 234 for Har- 
rison, 60 for Van Buren. The latter carried only Illinois, 
Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, and Missouri. 
The popular vote increased over that of 1836 by 900,000, rising 
from 1,500,000 to 2,400,000. Van Buren actually polled 
350,000 votes more than in 1836, and yet he was outvoted by 
150,000. All the world had come to the poll to vote. The 
movement from the Democrats to the Whigs had been gen- 
eral, and there was no overwhelming majority in any State. 

Dutch Thrift. — As Jackson had welcomed Van Buren to 
the White House, remaining there several days after the 
inauguration, so Van Buren welcomed Harrison. And it is si 

^See p. 106, supra. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 365 

curiously significant fact that the latter retired from the Presi- 
dency, with savings of some $50,000 from the four years of 
the salary of $25,000 a year. He was now worth nearly or 
quite $200,000. Perhaps Dutch thrift accounted for this. 
"The Panic of 1837" had meant nothing personally to him. 
And yet since Washington, this thrifty widower with four 
grown sons had maintained the White House hospitality more 
adequately than any other President. There is a deal in good 
management. It was never proven that he benefited by bear 
operations in the stock market, or otherwise. 

Tour of the South. — In 1842, Van Buren came out of 
his retirement at his noble hilltop mansion at Lindenwald and 
made a pilgrimage through the South, visiting Jackson at 
The Hermitage and Clay at Ashland. Every one supposed that 
he would be nominated in 1844. Tyler, who had succeeded 
to the Presidency on April 4, 1841, upon the death of Harri- 
son,^ was apparently his only rival for the Democratic nomina- 
tion. The crucial test was what opinion Van Buren still held 
as to the annexation of Texas. "Old Hickory" was for it. 
The South was for it. So far, Van Buren had steadily op- 
posed it; and he stood his ground and put his opinion in 
writing. Most of the delegates had been instructed for Van 
Buren. By a vote of 148 to 118, the Convention adopted the 
two-thirds rule; 58 Northern men with Southern principles 
voted with 90 Southerners. It was really a vote for Texas 
and for more slave territory and against Van Buren. 

Two-thirds Rule Defeats Third Nomination. — On the 
first ballot, he had 146 votes, all others 133. The instructed 
delegates began to fall away from Van Buren. On the ninth 
ballot, New York turned its 35 votes to Polk, who then won. 
Polk was Jackson's second choice. He was the first "dark 
horse" candidate.'^ It is said that the historian, George Ban- 
croft, head of the Massachusetts delegation, urged his name 
at the Convention. 

Van Buren loyally supported Polk in the campaign that fol- 
lowed. In the years of his rival's administration, the Demo- 
cratic party in New York State split into the anti-Texas, pro- 
Van Buren "Barnburners" and the "Hunkers" who "hank- 
ered" for office. The former were led by Van Buren's oldest 

'See pp. 373, 374 infra, ^See pp. 55. 165. ^i*pra. 



366 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

son, "Prince John" ; the latter by WilHam L. Marcy of "spoils" 
fame/ The death of Jackson in 1845 widened the schism. In 
1848, the party split, the Barnburners becoming Free Soilers 
because of their support of the Wilmot Proviso,^ while the 
Hunkers secured control of the Democratic party machinery. 
In May of that year, they refused to stay in the National Con- 
vention at Baltimore, which nominated Lewis Cass for Presi- 
dent, 

Free Soilers Nominate Van Buren. — In August, 1848, 
at Buffalo, the Barnburners or Free Soilers held their first 
National Convention. Martin Van Buren was their choice 
for President, by a vote of 159 to 129 for John P. Hale. 
Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy Adams and grand- 
son of John Adams, future Minister to England by choice of 
Abraham Lincoln, presided at the Convention and was chosen 
as Vice-Presidential candidate. These mighty words closed 
their platform : "We inscribe on our banner. Free Soil, Free 
Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men ; and under it we will fight 
on and fight ever until a triumphant victory shall reward our 
exertions." To this day, soil and speech, labor and men have 
always been in peril. 

There were good men among the Free Soilers, — David 
Dudley Field, later codifier of the laws of New York State; 
Joshua R. Giddings, Ohio's anti-slavery orator ; David Wilmot, 
author of the Proviso that set man and man apart ; Benjamin 
F. Butler, New York lawyer; Samuel J. Tilden, who drove 
Tweed to well-deserved ruin ; Gerritt Smith, millionaire philan- 
thropist and reformer; John A. Dix, destined to many high 
offices ; and Charles Sumner, scholar, reformer, orator, political 
attorney for capitalists and fanatic. 

Enter Zachary Taylor. — The Whigs, setting aside Clay 
and Webster, had nominated rich, war-loving and pious Zach- 
ary Taylor, hero and victim of the glorious raid into Mexico. 
In the campaign, such men as William H. Seward and Horace 
Greeley, professing to choose between Cass, Taylor, and Van 
Buren, supported Taylor; and Abraham Lincoln, fresh from 
his single term in Congress, stumped New England in favor 
of the slaveholding General. Oh, consistency ! oh, intellect of 
man! They weren't sure of the sincerity of Van Buren; and 

^See pp. 330, 331, supra. 'See pp. 394 395, infra. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 367 

habit, the habit not to think but to repeat, mastered them. It 
saves us from what? — ^sometimes from progress. 

Van Buren received not one electoral vote, but in the popu- 
lar vote he led Cass, though not Taylor, in Massachusetts, Ver- 
mont, and New York.^ In all, 300,000 voters went Free Soil 
that year; New York 120,000, Massachusetts 38,000, and 
Ohio 35,000. Free Soil pocketed big Lew Cass for the Presi- 
dency and let Taylor in at the front. 

In i860, A Douglas Democrat. — So ended the political 
career of Martin Van -Buren, In his old age, he wavered in 
his loyalty to the great cause of human freedom, being de- 
ceived by the compromises of Clay. During the administration 
of Pierce he spent two years in Europe. In i860, he opposed 
the election of Lincoln, favoring Douglas, but with the first 
signs of active war for secession and slavery came to the 
support of the President. On July 24, 1862, at nearly eighty 
years of age, he died of asthma and catarrh. 

Martin Van Buren belongs neither among the mediocre nor 
among the accidental Presidents. He was a statesman, though 
in but a narrow field, that of governmental finance. He was a 
master of politicians. He was a popular man at the polls. But 
for the unwarranted and undemocratic Democratic two-thirds 
rule, he would probably have been a recurrent two-term Presi- 
dent in the Cleveland style; and there certainly would have 
been no manifest destiny in 1845 to annex Texas and in 1846 
to make a Viking foray into Mexico. He was a better man 
than Clay or Webster, and almost as able as any of the im- 
mortal trio, — Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, — who never 
reached the Presidency. 

Among the Best Presidents. — In the cases of many Presi- 
dents, their terms do not constitute the best years of their 
record ; but John Quincy Adams, who admired and hated him, 
is sufficient authority for the opinion that the Presidency of 
Van Buren was the true glory of his career. Let him have 
his due rank as not far below the best of our Presidents. He 
thought that he resembled Madison more than any other of 
his predecessors. Of later men as President, Cleveland was 
nearest the Van Buren performances though unlike him in 
manner and in method. 

Personal Appearance and Character. — In person, Van 
Buren was small and strong, not heavy. His face was attrac- 

^See pp. 394-396, infra. 



368 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

tive, with keen, bright eyes, and a winning smile. His man- 
ners were easy, he knew the ways of the world. His temper 
was cool ; his disposition cautious, through foresight and poise, 
not from fear. He cherished no enmities. No man was big 
enough for him to hate. He had none of the meaner qualities 
that mar so many men. Like McKinley, he was always 
amiable. Base calumnies followed him through life; few of 
them seem to have any foundation. He did have "gold spoons" 
at the White House. He did resemble Aaron Burr in person, 
in manner, in mind, but not in morals. He was "the bankers' 
friend." He was not perfect; but his conduct under calumny 
and strain has stood the verditt of history, which is that he 
was in all main matters blameless. In American national poli- 
tics for an able man to be blameless is to be good and really 
great. 



CHAPTER IX 
William Henry Harrison 

1841 

1773-1841 
26 States Population 18,000,000 

An ofificial accident — "any man to beat Jackson's man" — not of Electoral 
College grade — compared with Lincoln — early life — father a Governor 
of Virginia — Hampden-Sidney graduate — ensign in army — marriage — 
secretary and governor of Indiana Territory — Tecumseh — battle ol 
Tippecanoe — Major-General U. S. A. — victory at Detroit — member of 
House of Representatives — Ohio State Senator — minister to Colombia 
— recalled — ran a whiskey distillery in his dark days — defeated for 
President in 1835— "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too"— President — office- 
seekers and climate killed the old man quickly — the honorable record 
of the Harrison family. 

An Official Accident. — The ninth President was an 
accident. There were at least scores of other citizens more 
deserving, and as many more likely to render good service. 
For the first time, the Whig politicians were looking for a 
man who could be elected. Washington and Jackson had been 
war-heroes. Ergo, look for a war-hero. The cry of the 
Whigs was, — "Any man to beat Jackson's man." They feared 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 369 

such a Jacksonian dynasty as the Jefferson had been. "An 
eye for an eye." The proscribed intended to proscribe, the 
despoiled to spoil. 

"Any Man to Beat Jackson's Man." — Not that William 
Henry Harrison was an unfit man, a disgraceful choice. He 
was in fact less unfit than Jackson had seemed to be in 1824 
and in 1828 before he was actually tried in office. Inferiority 
is relative. Harrison was not an inferior among Americans, 
but on the contrary decidedly superior. He was in fact an 
F. F. V. of Virginia. But he was relatively inferior not in 
morals or in mind but in training and experience, — less fit 
than any of his predecessors with the apparent exception of 
Andrew Jackson. He was such a man as the Electoral College 
of its own motion would never have considered, such a man as 
only emergency or craft calls forth. 

It is well not to be too harsh in our judgments. In i860 
Abraham Lincoln was apparently much less fit for the Presi- 
dency than Harrison was in 1840. 

Early Life; Educated at Hampden-Sidney. — William 
Henry Harrison was born at Berkeley, Charles City County, 
Virginia, on February 9, 1773. His father was a member of 
the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of 
Independence. He was Governor of Virginia from 1781 to 
1784; and in 1788 he opposed ratifying the Federal Constitu- 
tion, supporting Henry and attacking Madison and Washing- 
ton. He died in 1791. But in the mean time he had given to 
his third son a classical education at Hampden-Sidney College 
and had started him at medicine in Philadelphia, Except J. Q. 
Adams, no other President had so meritorious and distin- 
guished a father. 

In the Army Service. — Immediately upon his father's 
death, William entered the army as an ensign at Cincinnati. 
And the army was nearly all his career. He soon became 
aide-de-camp to General Anthony Wayne, whom Washington 
had sent into the Northwest Territory to subdue the Indians 
and to protect American treaty rights. In 1795 he married 
Anna Symmes, a daughter of a pioneer settler in the Big 
Miami valley. In 1798 he became Secretary for the entire 
Territory, and in 1799 delegate from the Territory to Con- 
gress, He took a prominent part in devising legislation to 
encourage the entrance of settlers into the fertile Northwest 



370 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

territory, and in the disposal of the public lands; but no 
money ever stuck to his own hands, or lodged in his own 
pockets. In 1800 President Adams appointed him governor 
of the Indian Territory, where he continued until 1812. 

Governor of Indian Territory. — Governor Harrison 
negotiated several important treaties with the Indians for the 
promotion of the settlement of the region by white families. 
For four brief months in 1804, he was also territorial governor 
of all the Louisiana Purchase, In 1809 the rising of the 
Indians under Tecumseh began. 

Wins Battle of Tippecanoe River. — On November 7, 
181 1, the battle of the Tippecanoe River, near Lafayette, In- 
diana, was fought. This victory gave to General Harrison 
fame and ultimately the Presidency. In 181 2 Kentucky ap- 
pointed Harrison major-general of militia ; not long afterwards 
he was made a Brigadier-General and later a Major-General, 
U. S. A. Not until 1813, after the victory of Oliver Hazard 
Perry at Lake Erie, did he accomplish anything effective for 
the American cause. Then in October he defeated the British 
and retook Detroit, which Hull had surrendered. 

Representative in Congress. — From this time until 1816 
Harrison was busy with Indian afifairs, though he resigned his 
army commission. Then he was elected member of Congress, 
serving a term and a half, in which time he interested himself 
in pensions for soldiers, in Indian wars and treaties, and in 
public lands. He opposed the course of General Jackson in 
the Seminole War. From 181 2 to 1821, he was a member of 
the Ohio Senate. Then, as a candidate for the House of Rep- 
resentatives again, he was defeated. 

Senator. — In 1825 this habitual officeholder or office-seeker 
was elected United State Senator. He served three years, 
when President John Ouincy Adams sent him as Minister to 
Colombia. But he was too democratic in nature for Bolivar 
the Liberator; and President Jackson recalled him. Now 
came dark days. To get cash to run his farm, he operated also 
a whiskey-distillery until he discovered that he was enriching 
himself from the impoverishment and degradation of his 
neighbors. Then he gave it up and was miserably dejected 
until a lucrative clerkship of the court of common pleas of 
Hamilton county came his way. 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 371 

Defeated for the Presidency. — By 1835, reflecting upon 
his recall by Jackson, the country began to talk of Harrison as 
an anti-Jacksonian Presidential candidate. So true is it that 
a man is made by his enemies ! Henry Clay was a Mason and 
a protective tariff advocate. The Whigs in 1836 took up the 
war-hero, and in the campaign he had 73 electoral votes to 
170 for Van Buren. 

Elected. — In 1840 they tried him again in combination 
with John Tyler of Virginia in order to get the Southern vote 
out. It was an extraordinary campaign with its "Tippecanoe 
and Tyler, too," its parades, log cabins and coon skins, and its 
indifference to political arguments. An Eastern Democratic 
editor said in type that Harrison would be more comfortable 
in a log cabin, drinking hard cider and wearing a coon-skin 
cap than in the White House. This remark helped to elect 
Harrison. Harrison took the stump, despite his years and his 
deficiencies as a public speaker. The country felt ripe for 
change, and the Whigs won easily. 

Harrison had 234 electoral votes ; Van Buren but 60. 

His excellent Virginia ancestry, his education, his wonder- 
fully picturesque and adventurous life, his repute as the man 
who killed Tecumseh, — which was not true, — his advanced 
years and his reputation for good judgment, the gratitude of 
the public for long years of service, his modest home-life, and 
above all his comparative non-committalism on all the political 
issues conspired to win votes against the President under 
whom had occurred the "panic of 1837" ^"^ its loud echo in 
1839.^ 

Killed by Climate and Office-Seekers. — Once in office, 
with the new railroads and the spoils system. President Harri- 
son was hounded by eager office-seekers. The spring climate 
of Washington, the sudden change in circumstances, the ha- 
rassment of spoilsmen, brought on pneumonia; and the old 
man died April 4, 1841. He had chosen an able Cabinet, and 
had reason to expect a prosperous administration. 

The Cabinet. — His official council was as follows, viz. : 

State, — Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. 

Treasury, — Thomas Ewing of Ohio. 

War, — ^John Bell of Tennessee. 

Attorney-General, — John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. 

Postmaster-General, — Francis Granger of New York. 

^See p. 358 et seq., supra. 



372 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Navy, — George E. Badger of North Carolina. 

They were mostly young men, geographically well-dis- 
tributed. 

The Honorable Record of the Harrisons. — General 
Harrison was of the better type of American volunteer soldiers. 
He was a good executive ; and as a legislator was wise enough 
to confine his activities to matters within his experience. 

His wife, the mother of his six sons and four daughters, 
two years his junior, survived until 1864, to die at eighty-nine 
years of age, after seeing one grandson, Benjamin Harrison, 
become a Major-General. 

In the Adams lineal descent, America has had two Presi- 
dents and a Minister to England, in three successive genera- 
tions, — John, John Quincy, and Charles Francis. In the Har- 
rison family, which has one source in the Indian girl, Poca- 
hontas, America has had a signer of the Declaration and two 
Presidents, — Benjamin, his son, William Henry, and his great 
grandson, Benjamin. It is the very honorable record of a 
family evidently biologically fit to survive and intellectually 
superior. 



CHAPTER X 

John Tyler 

1841- 1845 
17901862 
26-27 States Population 20,000,000 

Admitted: Florida- 
First Vice-President to succeed by death of chief — renegade or sorehead 
— early life — good family — educated at William and Mary — member 
Virginia House of Delegates — fought in War of 1812 — marriage — 
Representative in Congress— Governor of Virginia — United States 
Senator — strict constructionist — a Calhoun Democrat and yet not a 
nullifier— ^held right view as to District of Columbia — supported 
National Bank — resigned after obeying his State Legislature — member 
Virginia House of Delegates-^great popular triumph — not a spoils- 



JOHN TYLER 3;^ 

hian — no Democrat, no Whig — and lost — death of wife-^second mar- 
riage — President Peace Congress at Washington — an inconsequential 
person but agreeable. 

A Vice-President Becomes President. — The first Vice- 
President to succeed to the Presidency during his term of 
office by reason of the death of chief was John Tyler of Vir- 
ginia, whom the Whigs had nominated with WiUiam Henry 
Harrison of Ohio in order to be sure to win. They did win 
so overwhelmingly that every one saw that taking an anti- 
Jackson Democrat, temporarily a Whig on personal grounds, 
had been an unnecessary concession to expediency. They 
thought that as President of the Senate, Tyler would do no 
harm; they did not reckon upon the contingency of the suc- 
cession, within thirty-one days! And now Tyler was Presi- 
dent, without a party. The Democrats looked upon him as al 
renegade, the Whigs as a sorehead. It was a hard fate for a 
naturally agreeable gentleman, who was probably right in much 
of his distrust of Andrew Jackson and almost certainly right in 
being at heart a convinced Democrat. 

Early Life. — John Tyler was born at Greenway, Charles 
City county, Virginia, March 29, 1790. William Henry Har- 
rison was just removing from that county to Philadelphia at 
the same time. He was the second son of John Tyler, who was 
governor of Virginia later, from 1808 to 181 1. The Tyler 
family, like the Harrisons, was of English descent. 

Educated at William and Mary. — John Tyler went to 
William and Mary College, being graduated in 1807, and ad- 
mitted to the bar in 1809. At twenty-one years of age, he 
became a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. He 
saw some militia service in the War of 1812. In 1813, while 
in army service, he married Letitia Christian, a lady of his 
own age, who lived until 1842, and was the mother of three 
sons and four daughters. In 181 6 he became a member of 
Congress, serving until 1821. It was a career of easy, steady 
progress, such as sometimes characterizes the early life of well- 
born, industrious, agreeable men. In politics he was a consistent 
Jeffersonian. At this time, nearly all men of prominence were 
Jeffersonians. Tiring of life at Washington, he returned to 
the Virginia Legislature, and then was governor from 1825 
to 1827. 



374 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Governor of Virginia; Senator. — Before his term ex- 
pired, he was elected to the United States Senate to succeed 
the brilliant, erratic, forceful but lonely John Randolph. 

In the Senate, as a strict constructionist, Tyler voted con- 
sistently against all protective tariffs. He even voted against 
the "Force Bill" to enable the customs officers to collect the 
revenues, and was the only Senator to do so. He was more 
of the Calhoun Democrat than of the Clay or Whig. He 
tried to get the slave trade abolished in the District of Co- 
lumbia, and yet illogically asserted the necessity of slavery 
there because of the contiguity of Maryland and of Virginia, 
both slave States. As a State's rights man, he argued that 
since Maryland and Virginia had ceded the lands to the United 
States for the District, this peculiar domestic institution could 
not be abolished without their consent; in other words, the 
United States is only a tenant by continuing free-will of the 
owners of the lands. We may adopt this view yet in order 
to create an American government there. 

In respect to the National Bank, with Henry Clay and 
against the President, he stood for it. He was, in short, a free 
lance, with opinions that no one could safely predict. His 
predecessor, Randolph, had taught him this mood. The 
course of Tyler in 1836, when Senator Hugh L. White of 
Tennessee ran for President upon a split in the Democratic 
party, and when he himself ran for Vice-President, showed 
his capricious nature. Tyler had forty-seven votes, yet Van 
Buren and Johnson carried the State of Virginia against White 
and Tyler as well as against Harrison and several other 
candidates. 

Resigns. — When the Virginia Legislature instructed the 
United States Senators to support Benton's resolution to 
expunge from the journal of the Senate the resolution of 
censure against President Jackson,^ Tyler admitted the right 
of the Legislature to instruct the Senators but promptly re*- 
signed his seat on February 29, 1836. This act caused him 
to be counted a Whig, and probably more than any other gave 
him the Presidency, for it seemed to indicate him as a man 
with a working conscience and of independent judgment. In 
1838 he became for the third time a member of the Virginia. 
House of Delegates. As President of the Virginia Coloniza- 
tion Society, he began active work for the return of the 

*See pp. 344, 345, supra. 



JOHN TYLER 375 

negroes to Africa, a quixotic enterprise that fascinated many 
imaginative but ineffective men. The notion was strongly 
favored even by Abraham Lincohi. In 1839, Tyler ran for the 
United States Senate again but was defeated. 

And now luck came his way. The Whigs picked him up as 
ex-Governor of Virginia, ex-United States Senator, and de- 
feated candidate for the Vice-Presidency to run with the once 
defeated Harrison upon their ticket in 1840. 

Elected Vice-President, — The two native Virginians of 
the same county made a picturesque pair. Harrison was now 
sixty-seven years old, Tyler fifty. Harrison was strong in 
the Northwest territory, and Tyler in the Lower South. Har- 
rison was a military man, not a politician, though often in 
office; and he was a good administrator. Tyler was a politi- 
cian, rather doctrinaire. Neither was in any proper sense in 
the Presidential or Vice-Presidential class. They made their 
appeal, however, directly to the people, in language that the 
people could not well avoid understanding. It was the era 
of the enfranchisement of the masses ; and the new voters were 
not accustomed to judge either men or measures. Whether 
Tyler greatly strengthened the ticket is doubtful ; but the victory 
was overwhelming. The Electoral College stood 234 to 60. 
The popular vote was : 

Harrison 1,275,017, Van Buren 1,128,702. 

This was the first election in which James G. Birney of the 
Liberty Party ran. He had, however, but 7,000 votes. 

No Whig and No Democrat. — When Harrison died so 
suddenly, Tyler succeeded to the Presidency. He refused to 
follow the spoils system, and kept nearly every incumbent in 
office. The story of the Cabinet, however, tells how he satisfied 
no one and lived in political turmoil. 

For the Department of State, Tyler began with 

Daniel Webster, who lasted two years. Then followed two 
ad interim men. Next came 

Abel P. Upshur, who stayed seven months; and last was 

John C. Calhoun, who served six days. 

For the Treasury, he began with 

Thomas Ewing, but soon took 

Walter Forward, who lasted half a year. After him came 

John C. Spencer and George M. Bibb, each of whom served 
about a year. 



376 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

For the War Department, he had, first, 

John Bell, then John McLean, then John C. Spencer, of 
whom the third stayed a year and a half. Then 

James M. Porter and William Wilkins served about a year 
each. 

His Attorney-Generals were 

John J, Crittenden, a brief incumbent, 

Hugh S. Legare, who stayed two years as head of the De- 
partment of Justice, and was succeeded by 

John Nelson, who served about two years. 

In the Postoffice, he had 

Francis Granger for a little time, then 

Charles A. Wickliffe, and last, 

Selah R. Hobbie. 

For the Navy, 

George E. Badger soon gave way to 

Abel P. Upshur, who after two years, was succeeded by 

David Henshaw, a man of a half year; and then came 

Thomas W. Gilmer, for a brief time. Last was 

John Y. Mason. 

Tyler could scarcely find any man who would serve him 
long and whom he liked. He improved in his knowledge of 
men during his term ; but he seems to have been a poor judge 
of human nature, — that is, of men. He was more fortunate in 
his choice of domestic helpmeets. 

His Difficulties. — President Tyler vetoed the fiscal cor- 
poration, an alias for a new and third National Bank, a curious 
move in view of his former course.^ This angered the bankers 
and large capitalists who said that he had the limited view of 
an ignorant planter. He stood between the two parties and 
was supported by neither. He whipsawed back and forth un- 
happily, even distressfully. He forwarded the Webster- Ash- 
burton Treaty; whereas, if he had been either a hothead or 
a. jingoist, he might have begun a third war with England, for 
Congress was ready to declare war. The Treaty conceded to 
us only half of the 12,000 square miles claimed by Maine. It 
was a reminder of Jay's Treaty, of half a century earlier. 
For no greater reason. Clay had set on foot the "War of 
1812"; and for no reason at all, Polk was to stir up soon the 
Mexican War. But John Tyler was no Clay and no Polk, 



JOHN TYLER 377 

State's Rights in the North. — In 1842 the Supreme 
Court decided that under the statute of 1793, the States need 
not order their officers to arrest and to return runaway slaves. 
In New York State Governor WilHam H. Seward refused 
extradition papers respecting men who had stolen slaves in the 
South. In Congress, J. Q. Adams was one of thirteen mem- 
bers to publish a statement that the annexation of Texas would 
fully justify dissolution of the Union. South Carolina an- 
swered in mass-meetings that "to be out of the Union with 
Texas was a finer prospect than to be in the Union without 
Texas." 

Incidentally, in this same period, Rhode Island was in the 
throes of the travail of the new idea to her people of universal 
"free suffrage." Dorr's Rebellion was a civil war, but with- 
out bloodshed. 

The End of Tyler as President. — Van Buren, maneuver- 
ing behind the scenes, said that Tyler was surely no Demo- 
crat; he kept the Whigs in office. Clay repudiated him as no 
Whig because he was anti-bank, anti-tariff, and anti-internal 
improvements. 

But Tyler had favored the annexation of Texas; and a 
nomination for the Presidency was actually given to him by 
a special convention of Democrats at Baltimore in May, 1844; 
its members were mostly office-holders, a situation that no 
longer embarrasses ambitious Presidents.^ Upon reflection, 
after the nomination of Polk by the regular Democratic party 
convention in August, Tyler withdrew from the campaign. 

His last official act was to dispatch, on March 3, orders to 
annex Texas. 

Domestic Vicissitudes. — It is unavoidable to see that the 
death of his first wife early in his administration affected seri- 
ously the course of John Tyler. Two years later, almost of 
necessity, owing to his large family of children, he married 
Julia Gardiner, a lady who was thirty years his junior. Anxiety, 
death and loss, courtship and wedding filled three of the four 
years of his term. Vicissitudes unbalanced a judgment never 
secure and consistent. A young wife's enthusiasm and the 

*In the convention that nominated Roosevelt in 1904 were 67 office^ 
holders, and in that which noininated Taft in 1908 wer^ 156. 



S78 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

support of Federal office-holders led to the mistake of the 
Baltimore nomination. 

Once out of office, Tyler retired to his plantation and set 
out to acquire property. The former President, however, ap- 
peared frequently as a speaker upon public occasions. 

President of the Peace Congress in i860. — In De- 
cember, i860, when South Carolina seceded, John Tyler op- 
posed the measure. Two months later, he presided over the 
Peace Congress at Washington, which was called at the 
instance of the Virginia Legislature. But as the secession 
movement proceeded, he was swept into its current. Through 
all of 1 86 1, though past three-score and ten, he served in the 
Virginia Convention at Richmond. He was active in the work 
of organizing the Confederacy, and when he died was a 
member of the Confederate Congress. The date of his death 
was January 18, 1862; and the cause, as popularly reported, 
"a bilious attack." His second wife, the mother of five sons 
and two daughters, survived until 1889. 

He Did Nothing Great and Little III. — John Tyler 
was an inconsequential person, of charming manners, who 
never led. Fate placed him in a position where men sometimes 
do great harm or great good. It may be thought that the Presi- 
dency was higher than his abilities and character warranted. 
This is on the hypothesis that a President should rule. Quite 
a different view of a democratic governor may be supported 
with strong argument. Yet Fate dealt unkindly with Tyler 
in placing him in contrast with Jackson and the Adamses. It 
dealt with him unkindly in the misfortune whereby his life 
was broken in two at its middle by the death of his first wife. 
By editing his speeches and writing a biography, a loyal son 
of his second wife did much to make a genuinely respectable 
man seem worthy of some admiration. But in fact the im- 
mortality of John Tyler is due solely to his association with real 
immortals in the list of the Presidents of the people of the 
United States. He did little ill ; he did some good ; but he did 
nothing great. The space from Richmond to Washington 
measured most of his life; and it is by no means clear that he 
knew which was really greater, Virginia or the United States. 

Nor may the candid historian ignore the fact that as the 
father of fourteen children, the memory of John Tyler is 



JAMES KNOX POLK 379 

quite as secure as though he had been a far abler man. There 
is a biologic fitness that the Tylers, like the Harrisons, amply 
manifest. 

The Sovereignty. — At first, his neighbor, Robert E. Lee, 
who might have led the Union armies, was almost as much in 
doubt. It was a trying time for younger men than old John 
Tyler. Perhaps, the city of Washington is a little too near 
for Virginians to see it in full and true perspective. Yet tnose 
who live nearest to Washington, unless they have investments 
there, are seldom centralizationists. Eternal truth rests in 
decentralization, for the community is the true social mind of 
the individual, who is eternal. State's rights in the terms of 
imiversal history is near to individual freedom and respon- 
sibility. 

The simple question is whether or not State's rights were 
suitably invoked in the cause of negro slavery. To less excited 
limes, it appears that when the South pushed for the expan- 
sion of slavery under the Constitution, it invoked centraliza- 
tion ; and pleaded State sovereignty only when, fearing defeat 
imder the Stars and Stripes on the moral issue, it undertook 
secession. 

Very likely, the Compromise of 1850, which the former 
President favored, was in part unconstitutional; and a slave 
once out of the sovereign State in which he was held in slavery 
became free. Such was the law of civilization through several 
thousand years. But the issue itself is dead. And save for 
such enlightenment as history may afford for the future, it is 
well to "let the dead past bury its dead." 



CHAPTER XI 

James Knox Polk 

1845-1849 
1795-1849 

27-30 States Population 22,000,000 

Admitted: Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin. 

Polk seen as black or white — early life — educated at North Carolina State 
University — compared with Tyler, with Clay and with Washington — 
member Tennessee Assembly — ^married Sarah Childress, a lady of 



38o LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

wealth — member House of Representatives — Speaker — oflEice compared 
with Presidency — Governor of Tennessee — defeated for reelection — 
"dark horse" nominee — George Bancroft of Massachusetts — issues of 
campaign — error by Clay — President — charges of fraud and bribery 
— how Texas was annexed — compared with Cass — how Polk provoked 
the Mexican War — Zachary Taylor — the independent Treasury — a 
broken campaign promise — Oregon boundary — why the South desired 
Oregon — opposed by Cabinet — three States admitted — Mexico avenged 
— died in Nashville — a meteoric career. 

Black or White. — Like Jackson, Polk invited partisan- 
ship. Jackson seems either a beneficent force, conveying for 
the first time to the people their right to rule themselves with- 
out experts or as a maleficent force, tearing down the institu- 
tions of the fathers. Polk likewise seems either an expan- 
sionist promoting our manifest destiny under pressure of 
economic determinism or a slaveholders' tool trying to spread 
wider a foul labor-system. 

Several Presidents were unfortunate in surviving so long 
out of the office. This is true of John Adams and of John 
Tyler. Of other Presidents, their deaths near the close of 
their terms seem fortunate in silencing, or at least hushing, 
criticism. As far as men can see, it was fortunate for Abra- 
ham Lincoln that he died soon after Appomattox ; for George 
Washington that he died soon after writing the Farewell Ad- 
dress; and for James Knox Polk that he was not left many 
years to wrangle about the merits and the demerits of his 
single term. Now in the cooler air of two generations later, 
seeing the difficulty, we may perhaps pass upon the policies 
of Polk without partisanship. 

Early Life. — James Knox Polk was born In Mecklenburg 
County, North Carolina, November 2, 1795, the first elected 
President whose birth postdated the beginning of the National 
Period of our history. It was a backwoods community, yet 
not so lost to civilization as the natal spot of Andrew Jackson. 

Educated at North Carolina State University. — In 
that remote country, Polk lived until he was eleven years old, 
and then like Jackson, he went into Tennessee, though not as 
an orphan but with parents, who prospered and at length were 
able to send him back to North Carolina for education at the 
State University, where he was graduated In 181 6, at twenty- 
one years of age. He was admitted to the bar in 1820. 



JAMES KNOX POLK 381 

Compared with Others. — James K. Polk had three char- 
acteristics, — first, personal force, with the usual accompani- 
ment of self-assertion; second, long views with intense pur- 
poses; and third, trickiness. He was no inconsequential 
person full of excellent words and equipped with casuistry like 
John Tyler. He was also no shortsighted compromiser like 
Henry Clay, successively upon all sides of questions. He was 
something like Washington, however, laboriously arid man- 
fully going forward to an announced goal. He was driving, 
purposeful, shifty, both a statesman and a politician. He was 
wealthy, and independent His wife was beautiful, religious, 
exclusive. His college education, his wealth and his wife saved 
him from being erratic like the other Tennesseean Presidents, 
Jackson and Johnson, whom temperamentally he closely re- 
sembled. He had no children and but little family life, so that 
he was free to devote an ardent soul to the develojJment of the 
territory of the nation, and incidentally to ruin his health by 
overwork. 

Marriage. — At twenty-seven years of age, Polk was elected 
to the House of Representatives in Tennessee. On January i, 
1832, he married Sarah Childress, eight years his junior, 
daughter of a merchant and capitalist of his adopted State. A 
few months later, he went to Congress, where he served seven 
terms, for the last two of which he was Speaker of the House. 

Speaker of the House of Representatives. — This dis- 
tinctive honor lifted him above all ordinary politicians. An 
office that Henry Clay was proud to hold for six terms does 
not come twice to really mediocre men. The three great offices 
of the American Government are the Chief Justiceship, the 
Presidency, and the Speakership of the House, Thomas Jef- 
ferson and Aaron Burr made the Vice-Presidency a function 
like the Speakership of the British House of Commons. Fame 
attaches to the Presidency more than to the Justiceship, and to 
the Justiceship more than to the Speakership; and the three 
offices require different kinds of ability. But incommensurate 
as are these kinds of ability, taking the short list of the Chief 
Justices, and the much longer lists of the Presidents and of 
the Speakers, one does not find the average of ability, as esti^ 
mated In common opinion, greatly in favor of any one list as 
over against the others. 

Polk was the first Speaker of the House ever to become 



382 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

President. Speakers usually create too many antagonisms 
to be successful candidates for the Presidency/ His term as 
Speaker covered the last two years of the rule of Jackson and 
the first two years of the struggle of Van Buren, very unhappy 
times. In 1839 Polk was glad to retire to become governor 
of Tennessee. He was the Jackson leader for the State; but 
the Whigs defeated him for reelection in 1841 and again in 
1843. 

Dark Horse Nominee. — Often and often, however, in 
men's lives a defeat or several defeats prove the necessary road 
to later victory. It is sometimes necessary to lose battles in 
order to win a campaign. In the life of Polk, this was now 
to be demonstrated brilliantly. The leaders had fixed upon 
him as candidate in 1844 for the Vice-Presidency, almost 
irrespective of who the Presidential candidate should be, 
though nearly all expected to see Van Buren win the nomi- 
nation. The President did secure a fair majority of the con- 
vention, but not the requisite two-thirds. As the vote of Van 
Buren dwindled upon the next few ballots, because of fear 
that the "panic" President would not run well against the 
Whig candidate, Polk was brought forward as a dark horse. 
As Jackson in his day had been brought into political im- 
portance by his personal friends, so now Gideon J. Pillow, 
later to became a minor hero of the Mexican War and the first 
victim of Grant's audacious campaigning, — ^he was the Pillow 
of Fort Donelson to whom Grant sent the famous telegram : 
"No terms but unconditional surrender," — urged the claims 
of the former Speaker of the House and Governor of Ten- 
nessee. The historian, George Bancroft of Massachusetts, led 
his delegation to the support of Polk. This was the man who 
gave the color of Northern Federalism to all of our early 
history, — falsely and yet deliberately for political ends. 

The Issues in 1844. — Clay was the opposing Whig candi- 
date. So far as there were any issues, they were four. Of 
these, the first was the annexation of Texas ; the second, the 
proper boundary of Oregon; the third, the tariff; and the 
fourth, the Jacksonian dynasty. The Democrats meant to add 
Texas, to get a great Northwest territory, to lower the tariff, 
and to keep the government Jacksonian in spirit, for Polk was 
the second choice, perhaps first, of "Old Hickory," now in 
retirement at the Hermitage. Henry Clay and the Whigs 

^See pp. 313, 371, supra, and 535, infra, as to Speakers Clay and Blaine. 



JAMES KNOX POLK 383 

desired to get office and vacillated in their policies; Polk and 
the Democrats stood on firm ground. The vote in the Electoral 
College stood: 

Polk 170, Clay 105. 

And the cry went up all over the North: "Who is Polk?" 
sometimes varied to the form: "Who the devil is Polk?" 
They meant thereby to bedwarf Polk in comparison with 
Henry Clay, who was already sixty- four years of age and was 
famous among two generations of men. 

The fact was that in many ways James Knox Polk was just 
as "big a man" as Clay. Morally, he was far superior to Clay; 
he took no retainers from manufacturers for official work 
done in Congress ; he did not gamble, and he did pay his bills ; 
he was strictly obedient to the Seventh Commandment. But 
he was a younger man; and he was not an orator. 

How Polk Defeated Clay. — As a political proposition, 
Clay should have carried New York and Pennsylvania. He 
lost New York by 5,000 votes because his Kentucky friend, 
James G. Birney of the new Liberty party, had 15,000 votes 
in that State, nearly all taken by the abolition leader from 
Clay because of a certain letter written by him to an acquain- 
tance in Alabama, in which he made concessions to the Texas 
annexationists. In this letter. Clay made the serious mistake 
of trying to gain Southern votes, whereby he lost Northern 
votes in the critical States. The abolitionists knew that the 
annexation of Texas meant the extension of slavery. Herein 
Clay made what was politically a false move. 

But he lost Pennsylvania in part because of the trickery of 
Polk and the Democrats. Polk in a letter to a Pennsylvanian 
said that he was in favor of laws for the protection of manu- 
facture, agriculture, commerce, everything else. With cam- 
paign transparencies marked "Polk! Dallas! and the tariff of 
1842!" the Democrats convinced the Pennsylvanians that they 
were better protectionists than Clay and the Whigs, which was 
false, as early developments proved. Polk was a free trader. 

And there were minor causes. Theodore Frelinghuysen of 
New Jersey, the Whig nominee for the Vice-Presidency, was 
an ardent anti-Catholic, frightened by the fact that a million 
and a half of immigrants were arriving from the Old World 
in every decade at this period of Industrial expansion. The 
recently naturalized citizens voted against the Whigs. There 



3S4 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

were charges ot wholesale Democratic stuffing of ballot-boxes, 
intimidation and bribery of voters, and other frauds, as to 
which the truth now appears to be that the frauds, though 
committed, were not large enough to affect the result. 

A Political Error. — Henry Clay was a Southern man 
with some Northern principles, such as high protection and 
internal improvements. Because he was a Southerner, he 
always lost votes in the North. Because he had Northern 
policies, he always lost votes in the South. He was a man 
with a bad moral reputation — and character. The older he 
grew the more the truth came out. And the Whigs were 
divided, not harmonious. They were fairly scrupulous in their 
methods ; their frauds did not offset the Democratic. 

Polk a Factor in a Crisis. — The election of 1844 was one 
of the most important in our history. Had Clay been elected, 
we should not have annexed Texas and a war at the same 
time ; nor would slavery have spread so fast as it did westward. 
What would our history have been without the annexation of 
Texas in 1845 and the Mexican War in 1846-7! 

In the lives of some Presidents, such as Washington and 
John Adams, the Presidency has been the final phase and rela- 
tively not important. In the lives of several Presidents, it was 
all-important. Such is the case with James Knox Polk. More- 
over, the Presidency of Polk proved to be an overwhelmingly 
important matter to the American people,- — not because he 
was a great and noble character, whose influence was wholly 
for good, but because he was what he was, — energetic, purpose- 
ful, unscrupulous, and successful accordingly. Like Jefferson 
and Jackson, he dominated his Cabinet and managed Congress, 

His Secretaries. — For his executive colleagues, he chose 
men of considerable distinction. The record was this, viz. : 

State, — ^James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. 

Treasury, — Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, an able man 
of good right, for he was a grandson of Benjamin Franklin. 

War, — William L. Marcy of New York. 

Attorney-General, — General John Y. Mason of Virginia, a 
year and a half ; Nathan Clifford of Maine, nearly two years ; 
Isaac Toucey of Connecticut, not quite one year. 

Postmaster-General, — Cave Johnson of Tennessee. 

Navy, — George Bancroft of Massachusetts, year and a half; 
John Y. Mason, two years and a half. 



JAMES KNOX POLK 385 

Nearly every man was of excellent quality, as their later 
careers showed. 

Texas Annexed. — The annexation of Texas was nearly 
accomplished before Polk actually took office, and the business 
was characterized by a scandalously unconstitutional method. 
The annexation should have been by treaty requiring two- 
thirds vote in the Senate. It was accomplished by a joint 
resolution of both houses of Congress, requiring only ma- 
jorities. On March 3, 1845, President Tyler dispatched a 
commissioner to Mexico who later reported a treaty agreeing 
not to settle the Texas question save with the consent of 
Mexico, — which treaty President Polk repudiated. Moreover, 
this country took advantage of a revolution in Mexico to cheat 
that smaller nation of other treaty rights. We were expansion- 
ists, whose law is "Might makes right." And yet when Texas 
came in as a State, she greatly disappointed the slavery enthu- 
siasts by refusing to split into four States and thereby giving 
to the South eight new pro-slavery Senators. Her pride in 
that for a time she had been an independent nation, courted by 
England, who hoped to see added to the world's powers one 
more non-slaveholding people (for abolition was then strong 
in Texas ) was such that she would not consent to being broken 
into fragments. In 1910, Texas, the first State in area, was 
already the fifth in population and correspondingly powerful in 
national politics, though with eight Senators, from North, 
South, East and West Texas the province might be more 
powerful still. For one-fourth the area, the province of New 
England has twelve Senators. 

What Polk Did. — James Knox Polk provoked the war; 
the full story of the intrigues would make a considerable book. 
When we annexed Texas, the moving spirits in that region 
were themselves Americans. They occupied it with scattering 
settlements along the Gulf Coast as far south as the Nueces 
river, between which and the Rio Grande was a section a 
hundred miles wide without much population save a settlement 
of Mexicans on the east bank of the Rio Grande. This section 
belonged of right to Mexico still; but the Rio Grande runs a 
thousand miles northwest, and would make a far better boun- 
dary, a more natural boundary than the comparatively small 
Nueces. Besides, the Texans desired the land down to the 
Rio Grande. Polk sent General Taylor thither to get it.^ How 

*See pp. 392 et seq., infra. 



386 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

they got it and how Abraham Lincoln, then in Congress, ex- 
posed how Polk used Taylor in getting it, belong rather in 
their lives than in that of Polk. But the gist of the matter 
came in the order of the President to the General to defend 
Texas from invasion from Mexico, and, if need be, to cross 
the Rio Grande and to attack the Mexicans there. This Taylor 
somewhat reluctantly did. After blood had been shed, blood 
rose on both sides ; and in the United States, it became patriotic 
to vote men, supplies and money. Many Senators and Repre- 
sentatives who did not believe in the War voted to support it. 
Polk had kindled a backfire among the people that forced their 
delegates into his camp. 

The Independent Treasury Established. — To Polk we 
owe the final establishment of that independent treasury system 
which Van Buren first urged. It was a matter of transcendent 
importance; by it all talk of another National Bank became, 
as Henry Clay said, "obsolete." 

A Broken Campaign Promise. — In 1846 came the Walker 
Tariff Act by which the duties were greatly lowered, and the 
Pennsylvanians learned that the promises of campaign days are 
made for campaign purposes. Polk never meant to keep them. 
They are like the summer flirtations ending in summer engage- 
ments ; ending there, and meaning no more. But for the pros- 
pective war, this betrayal of the protectionists would have done 
the administration immediate damage; but as with Kings so 
with Presidents, foreign war is a counter-irritant to domestic 
distress and discontent. The protected manufacturers now 
had an army to equip with their productions. 

"54° 40' OR Fight.'''' — In 1846 the Oregon boundary was 
settled. Polk, Cass and all the other expansionists meant to 
"reoccupy" the Northwest and "Oregon," way up to 54° 40' 
because that was the southern line of the possessions of Russia 
in America. They intended thereby to shut Great Britain off 
from the Pacific. But British diplomacy and opposition in 
Congress forced Polk to accept the present boundary of 49°. 
The cry "Fifty-four forty or fight" availed nothing more than 
to hasten the settlement and to save what is now the State of 
Washington. The more sensible men in Congress did not 
propose to annex all the Northwest and another war with 
Great Britain. If Henry Clay had been President, probably 
we should have secured more of the Northwest, but not have 



JAMES KNOX POLK 387 

gained California, which was the real objective of the plans of 
Polk. 

Nearly all expansion leaders looked upon the Columbia 
river region as far more desirable than the arid deserts of the 
Southwest. Even the Southerners understood that the mild 
climate of the Puget Sound country was more like their own 
Gulf country than the Southwest was. And yet Polk never 
dreamed of slavery beyond the Rocky Mountains, He was 
far more of an expansionist than slavery advocate. He pro- 
posed to get the land. After that, we could settle and rule it 
as we chose. Herein, he had the historically correct view. 
Land is permanent. Slavery proved ephemeral. 

Highly Efficient. — There is little enough to be said in 
defence of the Mexican War. Perhaps in all our history, we 
have had no other President who would have hurried us into it. 
Polk was an efficient War President, prosecuted the War with 
vigor, and got the ugly business done with in two summers of 
campaigning. He was a far better man for the realization of 
America's alleged imperial destiny than Madison in his time, 
or McKinley half a century later. Taylor in the first season 
and Scott in the second, against the odds usually of vastly 
greater numbers, swept forward till Mexico City was in 
American hands. Men of Spanish and Indian blood were un- 
availing against the "Anglo-Saxon." It is quite likely that 
with a little patient diplomacy within a few years we might 
have bought upper Mexico. Hasty men, however, do not stop 
at bloodshed. 

The Cabinet Desires All Mexico. — ^At the close of the 
War, the Cabinet was for holding all Mexico; and a strong 
party in the Senate, including some Northerners, favored this. 
But Polk, in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, gave 
Mexico really liberal terms such as no defeated nation ever 
before knew; he sliced off lands that Mexico was ill-fitted to 
govern and paid $15,000,000 in gold, besides assuming some 
$3,000,000 of claims of Americans against Mexicans. 

Naval Academy at Annapolis. — ^To George Bancroft, the 
historian. Secretary of War in this administration, is due the 
final success of the plan of President John Quincy Adams to 
have a Naval Academy at Annapolis equal with the War 
Academy at West Point. This was begun in 1845. I^ that 
same year, assisted by the new railroads, rates of postage for 



388 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

letters were greatly reduced, becoming ^^ for less than 500 
miles, 10^ for more. 

The North Gains in the Senate. — The administration 
of Polk was marked by the admission of three States into the 
Union, — Texas with 265,800 square miles as "rectified" later, 
and Iowa and Wisconsin each with 56,000. It was again "bad 
politics," for the South might have had six, eight, even ten new 
Senators to stand against the Northern four. Instead, the 
South had two less. 

The time will come when the West will see the point, — will 
see that the East averages two Senators for every 20,000 
square miles while it averages three times as many. On the 
New England scale, Illinois should have ten Senators. 

The year 1846 saw the first successful sewing-machine and 
power-loom. Then also anaesthetics were brought into use in 
America. A year later saw the first rotary-press for printing. 
And in the year 1847 the Mormons occupied Utah. 

Not Even Renominated. — Now came punishment the 
avenger upon Polk the politician. He had earned the reward 
of a reelection. He had been an efficient War President and 
faithful to those who made him. But he did not get even a 
renomination by his own party. He was in fact too ill with 
malaria to care for a renomination. Because of his evasions, 
he had become known as "Polk the Mendacious." The sins 
of his slave-party were visited upon him, as the scapegoat. All 
through his term he had been taunted with the fact that the 
nomination of Silas Wright, the friend of Van Buren for Gov- 
ernor of New York, had pulled him through. Moreover, he 
had been a working President, while in his own party Cass, 
the great Senator, had played politics against him. And finally 
his backer and maker, Andrew Jackson, was dead; and he 
himself had never made friends among national politicians 
though not for want of opportunity. In May, 1848, upon 
the fourth ballot at the Baltimore Convention, Lewis Cass was 
nominated for the Presidency. He was political boss of Michi- 
gan; the leading opponent of the Wilmot Proviso; and the 
first organizer of the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty. But 
Taylor defeated him, to his vast surprise, — ^Taylor whom 
Polk had made and then, after his Buena Vista victory, broken. 

Died Unhappy and Childless. — And James Knox Polk 
left office in March, 1849, a-^ter adding a territory to the 



JAMES KNOX POLK 389 

United States equal to all New England, New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, the Virginia of 
1847, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Missis- 
sippi together, by his descent upon distracted Mexico. He 
left office ruined in health by the malaria of the Potomac valley 
and broken in heart by the ingratitude of those who had used 
him and by the condemnation of more patient and scrupulous 
citizens ; and soon afterwards, on June 15, 1849, di^d unhappy 
and childless at his mansion in Tennessee. His widow sur- 
vived until 1 89 1, being then eighty-eight years old. 

A Meteoric Career. — Without the grace of Clay or the 
ponderous eloquence of Cass, or the mighty, though partly mis- 
taken, patriotism of Webster, or the terrible convictions of 
Calhoun, or the keen insight of Benton, Polk was at least a 
vigorous executive and a politician who won his immediate 
ends. Polk shortcircuited a nation to a quick triumph. He 
took upper Mexico and hastened the day of the Interstate War. 
He taught war to a generation that might otherwise never have 
known it. He made bloodletting a little less horrible because 
somewhat familiar; and only fourteen years after the Mexican 
War were to pass before Sumter fell. Soldiers of that War 
led the armies South and North. A soldier of that War was 
President of the Confederacy. Another soldier of that War 
became the foremost leader of the Union armies. 

James Knox Polk played a great part, not the less great 
because so much of it was discreditable that his own party re- 
jected him and he became doubtful of the rectitude and wisdom 
of his own course. His was a strange career, like that of a 
far-thrown, aerial bomb bursting in lurid terror in a starlit, 
windy night. 



390 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

CHAPTER XII 
Zachary Taylor 

1849-1850 
1784-1850 

30 States 1850 — Population 23,191,876 

The Virginia stock — lieutenant U. S. A. — marriage — colonel — Black 
Hawk War — Brigadier-General U. S. A. — Indian fighter — acquires 
wealth — Mexican War — "Spot Resolutions" of Abraham Lincoln—; 
three gold medals — Buena Vista — "Old Rough and Ready" resigns — 
popular hero — nominated for President by Whigs — the Wilmot Proviso 
— Cass invents "squatter sovereignty" doctrine — the South goes 
Whig — Clay returned by Kentucky to United States Senate — Taylor 
a "traitor to the South" — Webster delivers "Seventh of March" 
speech — issues of Compromise of 1850 — Washington Monum.ent dedi- 
cation leads to death of President — change of course of events — his 
simple and positive mind and character. 

The Virginia Stock. — -The twelfth President of the 
United States was General Zachary Taylor, "Old Rough and 
Ready," hero of the early period of the Mexican War. He 
came of the same Virginia stocks that had already given to the 
nation Tyler, Harrison, Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, and 
Washington. Polk, though a native of North Carolina, was 
of the same Saxon strains, but Jackson was partly Celtic. Like 
William Henry Harrison before him, Zachary Taylor had a 
distinguished father, Colonel Richard Taylor, veteran of the 
Revolutionary War, and also like Harrison, Taylor came' to the 
Presidency late in life, for he was bom September 24, 1784, 
and was therefore sixty-four years of age at his inauguration. 
He was in vigorous health. But neither age nor state of bodily 
health has as much to do with a vigorous administration as 
temperament has. Jackson was both old and feeble physically. 
Yet he completed two terms and survived for years. 

No other man ever came to the American Presidency with 
so little preparation and of so little right as Zachary Taylor. 
His claims consisted in being the hero of a great victory and 
the victim of an outrage. Out of these materials, Thurlow 
Weed made him President. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 391 

Early Life. — Li 1785 Colonel Taylor moved his family 
from Orange County, Virginia, to a farm near Louisville, Ken- 
tucky. Upon that stirring frontier, amid its Indian struggles 
and its pioneer hardships, Zachary Taylor grew up, not indeed 
in the desperate poverty of Abraham Lincoln, a quarter of a 
century later in middle Kentucky ; but at best the advantages 
were few and the trials many. Though the family prospered, 
Taylor had almost no schooling. He grew to be a large man, 
energetic and self-reliant. We know little about him until at 
twenty- three years of age, in 1808, he became first lieutenant 
in the Seventh U. S. Infantry. 

Marriage. — With this position in life secured to him. Lieu- 
tenant Taylor went back East to Maryland, and took to wife 
Margaret Smith of Calvert County, then twenty-two years old, 
who had good family connections, a small dowry, and immense 
faith in her husband's future. This event took place upon 
June 18, 1 810. Two years later, Taylor rose to a captaincy. 

Officer U. S. A. — In the War of 1812, Captain Taylor dis- 
tinguished himself in the gallant defence of a stockade known 
as Fort Harrison in central Indiana, successfully keeping out 
the Indians. When the fighting ended, he received a major's 
commission, and then was reduced to a captaincy, which caused 
him to leave the service in disgust. But in 181 6, he became 
major again, and, in 181 9, lieutenant-colonel. Thirteen years 
later, he was raised to command as colonel and took an im- 
portant part in the posse comitatus known as the "Black Hawk 
War," being the very officer to whom the Indian chief sur- 
rendered. Abraham Lincoln, then twenty-three years of age, 
was a volunteer captain of militia in this same short war 
against the Sacs. Just as reputed killing Tecumseh had helped 
to make Harrison, so defeating Black Hawk helped to make 
Taylor. Jackson, Harrison, and Taylor were all "Indian 
fighters." Taylor soon became Indian agent for the upper 
Mississippi Valley. In June of 1835, he gave his daughter 
Knox in marriage to Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, who had 
served as lieutenant under him in the Black Hawk War. That 
fall both the young man and his wife had cholera; and she 
died. 

Indian Fighter. — In 1836 Taylor went from Wisconsin 
to Florida to fight the Seminole Indians. On Christmas 
Day in 1837, he gave to them a crushing defeat at Lake Okee- 



392 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

chobee. Knd then for four years, he chased the remnants 
about in the Everglades. He became brigadier-general and was 
placed in command of the First Department of the Army, with 
headquarters in Louisiana. 

Acquires Wealth. — By this period in his career, General 
Taylor had already accumulated a great property, including a 
plantation in Mississippi with more than a thousand slaves. 
The exact processes of his increase in wealth do not bear too 
close an inspection. The Southern Indians were negro 
thieves and smugglers. And white Indian agents and fighters 
had several ways of profit-getting. Early in 1845, General 
Taylor received orders from President Polk to proceed into 
Texas as soon as that State should accept the terms of the 
Joint Resolution.^ 

The Mexican Boundary. — By the spring of 1846, General 
Taylor was upon the west bank of the Nueces river, ready 
for war. He was now ordered to advance upon pitiable Mexico, 
torn with the dissensions of Santa Anna, Poredes, Herrera 
and still other leaders and revolutionists. If the United States 
meant to maintain the Rio Grande as the boundary, Taylor 
must proceed to it. Here he built Fort Texas, since known as 
Brownsville, opposite Matamoras. The Mexicans now de- 
manded that he retire behind the Neuces ; being under orders, 
he, of course, refused. On April 24, the Mexicans ambushed 
and captured a small American party under Captain Seth B. 
Thornton. At once Polk rushed a message to Congress urging 
war; said he, war exists "by the act of Mexico herself," for 
she "has passed the boundary of the United States, has in- 
vaded our territory and shed American blood upon American 
soil." 

The "Spot Resolutions.^' — ^\\^hereupon rose Abraham 
Lincoln in the House of Representatives and demanded that 
Polk name the spot where the blood was shed. But Jefferson 
Davis in the Senate did not bother with replying to this famous 
"Spot Resolution" ; he promptly resigned and entered the army 
under Taylor, who welcomed him heartily. 

Taylor Disagrees with Polk. — May 8, 1846, saw the 
battle of Palo Alto, eight miles northeast of Brownsville, 
and the next day saw the battle and victory of Resaca de la 
Palma, four miles north of Brownsville. Ten days after Palo 
[Alto, General Taylor was at Matamoras upon Mexican soil. 

*See p. 377, supra. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 393 

But Mexico still refused to enter into treaty negotiations re- 
specting the Texas boundary; and Polk ordered Taylor to go 
forward. In September he occupied Monterey, capital of the 
Nuevo Leon State. There he made a truce with the Mexicans, 
which Polk resented as pusillanimous. Taylor was ordered to 
go forward, which he did, occupying all northeast Mexico. He 
was now major-general and possessed three gold medals 
ordered by Congress. The question now arose whether to 
proceed overland from the north against Mexico City or by 
sea to Vera Cruz and thence eastward to the Capital. Taylor 
disliked the first plan and would not endorse the second. He 
was sixty years old and rich; he had settled the boundary 
question. It was enough. He was a soldier of civilization, 
pious, not bloodthirsty. 

Polk then put Winfield Scott in command of the Vera Cruz 
campaign, though he disliked Scott; and the naval force was 
ordered to let Santa Anna from his exile in Cuba get through 
into Mexico in the hope that increased internal dissensions 
would weaken the enemy. 

BuENA Vista Won. — From Taylor, the President withdrew 
all but 5,000 troops. General Santa Anna, who at once had 
secured the Presidency of Mexico, rushed 20,000 troops north- 
ward and, on February 22, 1847, fought Taylor at Buena 
Vista, near Saltillo. The scene was a narrow mountain pass ; 
the issue, victory for Taylor. Within a month, Taylor was 
the people's own choice for Presidential candidate, "Old 
Rough and Ready" the soldiers called him. And now he 
became hateful in the eyes of Polk. Party lines were to dis- 
appear. Though Taylor was more Whig than Democrat, he 
was to be, like Madison and Monroe, "President of the whole 
people." He had been too busy fighting and making money 
ever to vote. He was no party-man. The South liked him 
because he was a great slaveholder ; the West because he was 
both a Western and a Southern Indian fighter. Only the East, 
the upper East of New England and New York, held back. 
Taylor political meetings and Taylor newspapers appeared 
"ever)rwhere." At first Taylor disliked the idea ; but the party 
politicians saw in him Whig salvation and the recovery of 
the long-lost offices. Taylor soon resigned from the army. 

Senator Lewis Cass. — The Democrats felt the pressure 
and knew that the stampede was on. They had put General 



394 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Jackson forward in such a stampede and had seen General 
Harrison crush Van Buren. They decided that rich Lew Cass, 
ex-minister to France, United States Senator from Michigan, 
"Father of the Northwest," in his youth a hardy and brave 
adventurer, was the man to block the stampede, and in May 
at Baltimore they nominated him upon the fourth ballot. At 
one period in the balloting before the nomination of Polk, in 
1844, he had a clear majority. But Polk would not again 
allow his name to be presented. He had sown the wind, and 
would escape the whirlwind; in the wind of war arose the 
whirlwind of Taylor politics. Polk had used and misused 
"Old Rough and Ready" and fled to his cyclone cellar in Nash- 
ville. Upon his conscience was the first "army of occupation" 
under Taylor ; and the second "army of invasion" under Scott. 
Conscience had made him a coward; and the Potomac river 
valley fog had made him an invalid. 

"Old Rough and Ready'" Nominated. — Next month at 
Philadelphia, the Whigs met. The candidates for the nomi- 
nation were Taylor, Clay, Scott, and Webster, — from which 
fact much later history arose. The vote was on the 

First ballot, Taylor iii. Clay 97, Scott 43, Webster 22. 

Fourth ballot, Taylor, 171, Clay 32, Scott 63, Webster 13. 

Necessary for a choice 141. 

The military heroes led, the statesmen took the rear. It 
was "anything for votes." With Taylor for President, Mil- 
lard Fillmore of New York State was put up for Vice-Presi- 
dent. He had seen some useful legislative service, but was 
scarcely more of the Presidential class than John Tyler. 

The Wilmot Proviso. — There was but one issue in the 
campaign, which was whether the new western territory should 
be slave or free. America was bound to grow, but how ? Was 
slave labor or free labor to be the American system ? Several 
answers were proposed, but all turned upon the Wilmot Pro- 
viso, a rider upon an appropriation bill upon which politics had 
been turning for years. There might have been some con- 
fusion in 1844 as to the annexation of Texas ; there was to be 
none now as to the domestic institutions within the newly 
acquired regions of Texas, California, and Oregon as well as 
within the Louisiana Purchase. Some voters honestly believed 
that if we did not annex Texas, some European power, prob- 
ably England, would seize the little nation. But the new issue 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 395 

had no connection with the Monroe Doctrine. It was a per- 
fectly simple question — to every voter. "Are you for or 
against the extension of slavery?" 

"Squatter Sovereignty." — And yet there was great effort 
to confuse the voters. One of the three candidates was him- 
self not wholly clear. He put forward the Democratic doc- 
trine of State's rights : — Let the people of each State decide ; 
for "Squatter Sovereignty" is local option, decentralization, 
immediate liberty. This statesman who ducked the issue was 
Lew Cass, who had outlived his real usefulness. Lew Cass, 
who was in his day as brave a man as George Washington and 
as necessary to the development of the Northwest as Wash- 
ington had been to the West of his day. Cass had been born 
in New Hampshire in 1782, the same year as Martin Van 
Buren, John C. Calhoun, Thomas Hart Benton, and Daniel 
Webster. He was now nearly sixty-six years old, — ^two years 
older than Taylor, but five years younger than Clay. 

Said Cass, — in the critically important Nicholson letter of 
December 24, 1847, — "I^ the relation of master and slave may 
be regulated or annihilated, so may the relation of husband 
and wife, of parent and child, and of any other condition 
which our institutions and the habits of our society recognize." 
Let the Territories become States and in their Constitutions 
settle the affair. But the Wilmot Proviso took a different 
view. 

David Wilmot was a youngster in politics, — a Pennsyl- 
vanian, born in 1 814. He had been in Congress just one year 
when in August, 1846, — ^he was then thirty-two years old, — ^he 
moved an amendment to a bill appropriating $2,000,000 for 
the purchase of a part of Mexico, — "That, as an express and 
fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from 
the republic of Mexico, by the United States, neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of the 
territory." The House passed this; but the Senate defeated 
it. At the time, Cass had said that he was sorry for the defeat. 
The remark, revived and quoted everywhere, cost Cass many 
votes in 1848. In this year of crisis, Wilmot was supporting 
old Martin Van Buren in the best cause that wise politician 
ever advocated.^ 

The South is Split. — ^When the votes were counted, it 
appeared that Taylor had carried eight slave States for Whig^ 

*See p, 36s, supra. 



396 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

gery and Cass but seven of them for Democracy. The South- 
erners had trusted the Whig Southern slaveholder without a 
political record rather than the Democratic Northern "Squatter 
Sovereignty," wage-labor, rich man, for all his pro-slavery 
record. They knew that Cass believed that in the new States 
free-labor would drive out slave-labor and that simply in order 
that he might win the Presidency, he had advocated letting 
each State decide. In the Electoral College, the vote stood : 

Taylor 163, Cass 137. 

Martin Van Buren, Free Soil candidate, former Democrat 
and to be a Democrat again, had taken enough votes from Cass 
in New York and Pennsylvania to defeat him.^ 

The Control of the Senate. — Already California was 
seeking admission into the Union, and the South was greatly 
worried. The political fulcrum of the South was the control 
of the gerrymandered Senate, in which they had been outplayed 
by the North with its smaller States, for despite all the allow- 
ance of 3/5 of the slaves in the voting representation, the 
North controlled the House of Representatives. In his last 
message to Congress, Polk advocated stretching the Missouri 
Compromise line westward to the Pacific and organizing New 
Mexico and California as territories. In January, 1849, Michi- 
gan reelected Lewis Cass as United States Senator, for he had 
resigned in order to prosecute vigorously his Presidential can- 
didacy; but the vote was close, 44 to 38, and Free Soil was 
near to victory. The return of Cass to the Senate greatly 
affected the next turn of events. 

Business Men Pay the Debts of Henry Clay. — In the 
same year Henry Clay, who for several years had been in re- 
tirement upon his farm at Ashland in Kentucky, was sent, with 
all his debts paid by generous admirers in the business world, 
conspicuous among whom was John Jacob Astor, German 
expatriate, back to the United States Senate by the Legislature 
on unanimous vote. He was now past seventy, his birth year 
being 1777. A marvellous conjunction of legislation and of 
judicial decision by old men who could not see the new issues 
was about to take place. 

Taylor Chooses a Bi- Sectional Cabinet. — Zachary 
Taylor took the Presidential office upon March 5th, for the 4th 
fell upon Sunday. For his Cabinet, he chose four Southern 
and three Northern Whigs. Its membership was as follows: 

*See p. 3,6S, supra. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 397 

State, — ^John M. Clayton of Delaware. 

Treasury, — William M. Meredith of Pennsylvania. 

War, — George W. Crawford of Georgia, who was suc- 
ceeded in 1850 by Edward Bates of Missouri. 

Attorney-General, — Reverdy Johnson of Maryland. 

Postmaster-General, — ^Jacob Collamer of Vermont. 

Navy, — William B. Preston of Virginia. 

Interior (just created), — Thomas Ewing of Ohio. 

General Taylor hoped by an honest admission of sectional 
feeling to reconcile both sections and thereby to promote har- 
mony. It is a pleasant theory. Minority representation is part 
of it. By it, responsibility is lost. 

California Comes In. — In the fall of 1849, the CaHfor- 
nians adopted an anti-slavery, Free-Soil Constitution in con- 
vention, which the people, fearing lest negro slavery should be 
established in their new gold and silver mines as proposed by 
Southern leaders, ratified by 12,000 votes to 800. Next month 
Henry Clay arrived in Washington to be Senator again. At 
heart, he favored the Wilmot Proviso ; and the South was now 
terribly afraid of him. 

"Traitor to the South/" — For three weeks, the House of 
Representatives was in turmoil over the election of Speaker, 
in the end electing a man of thirty- four years, Howell Cobb 
of Georgia, a strong proslavery politician. Suddenly, Presi- 
dent Taylor found himself charged with being "a traitor to the 
South" because he advocated admitting both California and 
New Mexico, though they proposed to exclude slave-labor. 
Fierce talk and fierce articles urging the South to disunion 
raged from Baltimore to Corpus Christi. 

Our Greatest Senate. — And now in the greatest Senate 
that American history ever saw, Henry Clay found himself 
the unquestioned leader, working harder and more success- 
fully than ever before. With him were Webster, Calhoun, 
Benton, Sam Houston, Jefferson Davis, Cass, Dickinson, 
Douglas, Corwin, Hamilton, John P. Hale, Seward, and Chase : 
— to mention less than half of those already famous or soon 
to become so. Late in January, 1850, Clay proclaimed the 
outlines of the famous Compromise, his last exploit in states- 
manship. A few days later, he made his wonderful two-days* 
speech. Then came, early in March, Calhoun's last effort, — 
so weak was he that Senator Mason of Virginia read the 



398 V LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

speech for him. Next fell the doom of Webster's Seventh 
of March Speech, which shut him forever out of the Presi- 
dency, delayed the civil war eleven years, according to his 
critics, marked him down from the blessed immortals of 
American history, and revealed how weak at best the great may 
be when they cherish personal ambitions. On the nth of 
March, Seward proclaimed his "higher law" doctrine, while 
Webster sneered and Clay lamented. March 31, 1850, John 
C. Calhoun died, and all the South was wrapped in gloom for 
their faithful, fallen leader, the statesman easily chief of the 
"Cause." 

Issues Great and Small. — There were several matters in 
issue, — the admission of California as a free State, still further 
reducing the power of the slave-holding South in the Senate; 
the territorial governments of Utah and New Mexico, with 
or without the Wilmot Proviso ; the slave trade and slavery in 
the District of Columbia ; rendition of fugitive slaves escaped 
into the free States; the boundary line between Texas and 
New Mexico. 

Taylor on the Compromise of 1850. — Now Zachary 
Taylor spoke. His words were of alarming power. The Gen- 
eral spoke, not the politician. "Old Rough and Ready" had 
thought it over, and made up his mind. His simple nature 
was not bothered with confusions or hesitations. First, let 
California in now. Second, let New Mexico hold a Constitu- 
tional Convention and decide what she pleases. Third, let 
Texas keep her militia out of New Mexico, or I will go down 
there myself with the United States Army. Fourth, let the 
South once proceed to armed disunion, and I will arrest the 
seceders for treason, and execute them according to military 
law. Clay called the situation "the five bleeding wounds," — 
California, the territories, the Texas boundary, the fugitive 
slaves, and the slave trade at the Capital. 

Dedication and Death. — In this crisis, — ^Taylor, Benton, 
and Seward on one side, Clay and Webster on the other, — in 
the dreadful summer climate of Washington, on the Fourth 
of July, Zachary Taylor drank copiously the water of that 
infected region, had a sunstroke, developed typhoid fever and 
on the 9th instant, died. It was, a strange omen for the Wash- 
ington Monument at whose corner-stone laying the President 
had officiated. Years later, it was necessary to go down deeper 



MILLARD FILLMORE 399 

and wider, and to make far stronger foundations. It was a 
grievously hot day, — the Southerners present complained that 
it was never so hot at Savannah or Mobile or Charleston or 
Atlanta. 

Taylor was survived by his wife, the mother of his son and 
five daughters. She died two years later. 

The death of Zachary Taylor was one of the worst mis- 
fortunes that ever befell the American people, South and North 
alike. It was another item in that endless bill of costs due to 
the compromise of Alexander Hamilton by which the Capital 
was located where George Washington, Daniel Carroll, and 
Robert Morris might conveniently make some money.^ 

Simple and Positive Character of Zachary Taylor. — 
Of course, those who think that whatever has happened has 
been necessary and inevitable and those who think that the 
slavery question could have been settled only by war are not 
likely to agree that the death of Taylor was of vital impor- 
tance. ^But others see in it the driving hand of destiny. Had 
Taylor lived to finish his term, in other words, had the Capital 
of the United States been in a cool hill country fit for summer 
habitation, the Compromise of 1850 might have been — ^vetoed. 
Zachary Taylor had sufficient character to veto an Omnibus 
bill that was full of miseries for this country; and the Thirty- 
first Congress would not have carried the bill over his veto. 



CHAPTER XIII 
Millard Fillmore 

1850-1853 
1800-1874 

30-31 States Population 25,000,000 

Admitted : California. 

A test of greatness — early life — school teacher and law clerk — marriage 
— a great law firm — State Assemblyman — Representative in Congress 
— the telegraph — State Comptroller — Vice-President — second to suc- 
ceed to Presidency by death of chief — favors Compromise of 1850 — 

^See p. 239, supra. 



400 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

his Cabinet — New Mexico votes for slavery — the fatal Fugitive Slave 
Act — another "era of good feeling" — prosperous international relations 
— second marriage — a hand-to-mouth politician. 

Early Life. — On February 7, 1800, in the last year of the 
eighteenth century, Millard Fillmore, to become typical New 
York State politician, was born, to represent an old era upon 
the threshold of a new. He heard the voices of Clay and of 
Webster, not of Seward and of Giddings, not of Stephens 
and other Southern statesmen. 

His birthplace was Summerhill, Cayuga County, where four 
years before his father had made a clearing. There were no 
schools in the neighborhood, and his father and mother were 
his only teachers. At fifteen years of age, with the increased 
population, there was a call for an apprentice to a fuller and 
clothier, and Millard was indentured as a maker and dyer of 
cloth. Four years later, his master released him — for a promis- 
sory note of $30 — and Fillmore took up the study of law. It 
was a scarcely more auspicious beginning of life than was to 
befall Andrew Johnson. But Fillmore made his way to 
Buffalo, a hundred and twenty miles west, and in 1820 be- 
came a school-teacher, of a kind, and a clerk in the postoffice 
of the village. In 1823, having been admitted to the bar, he 
went to Aurora to join his father. 

Marriage. — ^There in 1826, he married Abigail Powers, 
two years his senior, a lady descended from that famous Henry 
Leland who, coming early to Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 
1850 had 9624 descendants. Such a stock has immense powers 
of adjustment and of success, as its progress testifies. 

In 1830 Fillmore went back to Buffalo, which was thriving 
with the new business of the Erie Canal, and soon became a 
partner of a firm, three of whose members, — himself, A. G. 
Haven, and N. K. Hall, — later became members of Congress. 
The firm prospered, and though Fillmore never grew to be a 
distinguished lawyer like Van Buren, he did make money. 

In Congress. — From 1829 to 1832, Fillmore served in the 
New York State Assembly as an independent Democrat. Then 
he was elected Representative in Congress as an Anti-Jackson 
Democrat, serving one term. For two years thereafter, he de- 
voted himself again to his law practice; but, in 1837, he was 
back again in Congress, to serve three consecutive terms as a 



MILLARD FILLMORE 401 

Whig. He opposed the annexation of Texas in the early 
years of the agitation. The Democratic theory was, first, that 
Texas was really a part of the Louisiana Purchase and, second, 
that J. Q. Adams had let Texas go in order to get Florida.^ 
The Democrats called their theory the "reoccupation of 
Texas," which was plausible and patriotic expansionism. Fill- 
more advocated internal improvements at Federal Govern- 
ment cost, supported Congressman J. O. Adams in maintaining 
the right of offering in Congress the anti-slavery petitions, 
favored prohibition of the Interstate slave trade and the 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In all this 
business, he was moderate and dispassionate. 

The Telegraph. — In the Twenty-seventh Congress, he was 
made Chairman of the highly important Ways and Means 
Committee, and in that capacity, against great opposition, 
carried an appropriation of $30,000, contrary to the Constitu- 
tion, for the assistance of Samuel F. B. Morse in his new 
telegraph.^ His idea was to make the telegraph a government 
affair like the mails. This was an event of major importance 
in government and politics, for the instantaneous transmission 
of news and orders has revolutionized the conditions of politi- 
cal as well as of commercial and nearly all other affairs. Gov- 
ernment used to be weak at the periphery of its jurisdiction. 
It is now equally strong everywhere. But for Fillmore's timely 
assistance to this invention, its success might have been delayed 
many years. Fillmore also reported the Tariff Bill of 1842 
with its small concessions to the South and to free trade. 

New York State Comptroller. — In 1844 Fillmore was 
defeated for the Governorship of New York State; but in 
1847 he became a candidate for the lesser State office of Comp- 
troller and was successful. His nomination for Vice-President 
was upon the plan that the Vice-Presidential candidate should 
come from the opposite wing of the party from the Presiden- 
tial candidate in order to win and hold all the votes of the 
party. Seward was, in fact, the most popular Whig in New 
York State at the time ; and the backers of Taylor would have 
preferred him. But he was not politically available to balance 
the pair. 

Succeeds to the Presidency. — Millard Fillmore did not 

^See pp. 311, 312, supra. *See p. 333, supra. 



402 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

add to or detract from the ticket. Theoretically, he was far 
better prepared for the Presidency than Zachary Taylor. But 
the next three years practically disposed of the theory. On 
July 10, 1850, he took the oath of office as President. He 
had presided over the Senate and had listened to the Compro- 
mise bills and debates. Experience, ingenuity and eloquence 
were upon the side of Clay. Moral enthusiasm was on the 
side of Taylor, Benton, and Seward.^ Fillmore was always 
judicious and cautious and moderate. Moreover, he disliked 
Seward. He disliked even more Martin Van Buren, who had 
led the Free Soilers in 1848. The Free Soilers were not com- 
promisers. 

Volte Face. — ^At once, upon the entrance of Fillmore, the 
policy of the executive branch of the Government changed 
volte face. He appointed a new Cabinet, taking as Secretary 
of State that Daniel Webster, half of whose income came from 
rich admirers and tariff beneficiaries in free gifts, — to help him 
live comfortably in Washington. We call this corruption 
nowadays. But then not a few of the eminent men of the 
past would have served terms in Federal and State peniten- 
tiaries, if the moral standards of our day had suddenly been 
applied in theirs. In 1852, Webster was a fit patient for a 
modern sanitarium. It wks not his fault wholly; he had 
known bitter domestic affliction and calumny in large part pure 
fiction; and the times were different. 

Peaceful Cabinet Days. — The Cabinet of Fillmore was 
as follows, viz. : 

State, — Daniel Webster, two years (until his death) ; Ed- 
ward Everett, both of Massachusetts. 

Treasury, — Thomas Cor win of Ohio. 

War, — Charles M. Conrad of Louisiana'. 

Attorney-General, — ^John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. 

Postmaster-General, — Nathan K. Hall of New York, two 
years ; Samuel D. Hubbard of Connecticut. 

Navy, — ^William A. Graham of North Carolina, twO' years ; 
John P. Kennedy of Maryland. 

Interior, — A. H. H. Stuart of Virginia!. 

The Compromise Bills Carried and Signed. — ^The Clay 
Omnibus bill was itself defeated, but all of its component 
measures with several allied bills were passed by rather close 
yotes. The proposition to split California into two parts, the 

*See p. 394, supra. 



MILLARD FILLMORE 403 

north free-labor, the south slave-labor, at the extended line of 
the Missouri Compromise 36° 40' was defeated; and the whole 
State came in free. Its division into two or more parts, with 
slavery in neither, would have been better. But it was agreed 
that Deseret (Utah) and New Mexico were to be organized as 
territories without the Wilmot Proviso. 

In 1849 the New Mexico territorial legislature voted to per- 
mit slave-labor, though, under the Constitution of Mexico, 
slavery had been forbidden — on paper. It was a strange retro- 
gression for a territory added to "Columbia, the home of the 
brave and the free." The slave-trade was forbidden in the 
Capital of the United States; this was the second offsetting 
gain of the abolitionists. But Texas, a slave State, received 
$10,000,000 for a mythical loss in adjusting the boundary with 
New Mexico. And, worst of all, a new drastic Fugitive Slave 
Law was passed. This denied to the man arrested the writ 
of habeas corpus and terrorized all free negroes. This futile 
and wretched law angered thousands and tens of thousands in 
the North and was itself one of the potent causes of the rise 
of the Republican party. It set in operation the underground 
railroads by which slaves escaped from the Southern States 
into Canada. It suggested to Harriet Beecher Stowe the writ- 
ing of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which was published in 1852, 
and made world-wide mischief. Not Machiavelli himself could 
have devised a more perfect boomerang for the slaveholders. 
What slavery needed was time, time with silence. The law 
was unnecessary, for the common law and earlier statutes dealt 
sufficiently with the matter. Under the new act, moreover, 
it usually cost as much as a slave was worth to get him back. 
Despite all the protestations of his neighbors and of many 
leading Northern politicians, Fillmore signed this bill; it was 
the political death-warrant of himself and of the slavery 
system. 

The Second "Era of Good Feeling." — But now from 
over all the land arose the cry, "Peace, peace." After the 
Compromise, for three years, there was a peace like that of the 
Era of Good Feeling in the time of Monroe.^ Everything was 
now finally settled ! Webster's Seventh of March Speech was 
justified. The nation was permanently saved. Fillmore had 
time to do several good things. He blocked the filibustering 
in Cuba that aimed both to add a slave Jsland with several 

^See p. 298, supra. 



404 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

States to the Union, and to get part of northern Mexico for 
the same purpose. The expedition of Perry, who opened Japan 
to the world, came in this epoch, and our army explored the 
Amazon valley. 

Disappears from Politics. — But important internationally 
as were these several matters, nothing could now secure a re- 
nomination by the Whigs, — Fillmore was politically dead. He 
tried again, four years later ; and when in Europe received the 
nomination, first, of the Know Nothings or Americans, who 
meant to keep out foreigners,^ and, second, of the Whigs ; but 
both Know Nothingism and Whiggery were dead. In the 
Electoral College, only Maryland voted for Millard Fillmore 
in 1856 for President. He had lost his opportunity. He was 
never heard of again in politics anywhere. He had lived upon 
the crater of a volcano and had called it cool and solid rock. 

Domestic Affairs. — Fillmore married, first, Abigail 
Powers in 1826, who was the mother of his two children, a 
daughter and a son. She died in 1853, the year that he went out 
of office. In 1858 he married a widow, Mrs. Caroline G. Mcin- 
tosh, thirteen years his junior, who survived him seven years 
until 1 88 1. He died without other known cause than the gen- 
eral debility of old age, March 8, 1874, having been politi- 
cally silent through the fatal years of the Interstate War, and 
in these last years displaying abulidant evidence that he was 
by nature dependent upon his surroundings and upon his 
friends. He was no leader or prophet or statesman. He had 
been safe, sane, and mistaken; but he was no hypocrite, — 
simply blind. 

A pleasant glimpse of him comes from an incident in Feb- 
ruary, 1 86 1, when President-elect Lincoln stayed overnight at 
his house in Buffalo. They went to church — a Unitarian 
church — on Sunday, — and when they stood up together they 
were shoulder to shoulder, though Lincoln was the taller. Fill- 
more, though then sixty-one years old, and nine years the 
senior, looked the younger man. This hospitality cheered 
Lincoln not a little. Fillmore acquired a comfortable and 
adequate but not large property. 

Lived for the Day. — In his day, he was scarcely above 
political chicanery and hand-to-mouth, day-by-day trades. Un- 
fortunately for his fame as well as for his character, ethical 

*See pp. lOQ-iioi, supr(L 



FRANKLIN PIERCE 405 

laws rule nations and individuals; and principle, not expedi- 
ency, guards the door to the pantheon of final human glory. 
To him, this idea was almost meaningless. 



CHAPTER XIV 
Franklin Pierce 

1853-1857 
1804-1869 

31 States Population 27,500,000 

Great men in history — early life — a distinguished and continuously helpfu! 
father — Nathaniel Hawthorne — educated at Bowdoin — lawyer — State 
Assemblyman — Speaker — marries daughter of President of Bowdoin — 
Representative in Congress — United States Senator — private law 
practice — United States District Attorney — personal appearance — 
Mexican War private — brigadier-general of volunteers — President 
State Constitutional Convention — dark horse Presidential candidate — 
the two-thirds rule — ebbtide in national life — a notable Cabinet — a 
spoilsman — Kansas-Nebraska Act — old parties both proslavery — South 
for centralization temporarily — international successes — Gadsden 
Purchase — "Bleeding Kansas" — not renominated — life in Europe — sup- 
ports Vallandigham — his failure as President. 

Great Men in History. — There is a theory much exploited 
in the last two centuries that "social forces make history" and 
that "individuals don't count," This theory is sometimes 
qualified by the admission that occasionally a social force plays 
in an individual and in him only ; through him, it smashes into 
history. It is an ingenious theory entrancing to mechanical 
minds incapable of rising above conceptualism into the higher, 
colder and thinner, yet earth-embracing and star-reaching 
ether of the rational. 

Certainly, the history of the United States under President 
Pierce is an admirable illustration of "economic determinism." 
He let work whatever would work. Where a Jackson would 
have struck and a Lincoln would have contrived, Franklin 
Pierce benig^antly waited to see things happen. Well, — ^the 



4o6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

people have usually reelected the interfering men of genius; 
but they dropped Pierce like an inconsequential clerk. He was 
never thought of even for renomination. 

Early Life. — The fourteenth President of the United 
States was born November 23, 1804, at Hillsborough, New 
Hampshire. He was the first of the Presidents born in the 
nineteenth century and the third and the last of the New Eng- 
land Presidents, all of them one-termers.^ Like the Adamses, 
he had an excellent education. His early life had some re- 
semblance to that of William Henry Harrison, for his father 
had served with distinction all through the Revolutionary War, 
had been, for four years, a member of the New Hampshire 
Legislature, and had served a term as governor of the State, 
1827-9. 

Educated at Bowdoin. — General Pierce gave to his son a 
thorough education, completed at Bowdoin College in 1824. 
There was begun his lifelong friendship with the novelist, 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, no unimportant feature in his career, 
for it was Hawthorne's eulogistic campaign biography of his 
college-mate that helped make Pierce President. 

Speaker of State Assembly. — The college graduate, son 
of a famous father, at once proceeded to study law at his 
home village ; and in 1827 was admitted to the bar. When he 
was but twenty-five years of age, he became a member of the 
State legislature, and from 1831 to 1833 was Speaker, Much 
of the product of our State legislatures is amateur and puerile 
because so many of the members are not yet out of the last 
stages of adolescence. 

Gains Social Prestige by ]\^arriage. — In November, 
1834, Franklin Pierce married Jane Means Appleton, two 
years his junior, daughter of the President of Bowdoin Col- 
lege. This marriage added to his social prestige as well as 
to his happiness. He was soon in Congress as Representative, 
urged there by his father, who had become governor of New 
Hampshire. Franklin Pierce worked hard in committee as a 
supporter of the policies of Andrew Jackson. This was the 
period in New Hampshire politics when the State sent that 
enterprising journalist, Isaac Hill, to the United States Senate, 
and Jackson made him a favored member of his kitchen cabi- 
net, Franklin Pierce was always the creature of others both 

*Sec p. 58, suprq. 



FRANKLIN PIERCE 407 

in State and National politics. To-day, we would call Hill the 
State "boss" and Jackson the National one. 

United States Senator. — In 1837 Pierce was made 
United States Senator, serving until 1842, when he resigned. 
In 1839 his father died, and for financial reasons, Pierce re- 
moved to Concord, the State Capital, and for several years 
gave himself wholly to his law business, refusing the governor- 
ship, but accepting in 1845 the post of United States District 
Attorney, which he held for two years. In 1846, President 
Polk offered him the post of United States Attorney-General, 
but he declined. 

Personal Appearance and Temperament. — A pros- 
perous career of this kind displays an alert, versatile, happy, 
.agreeable and industrious man. Franklin Pierce had all the 
minor virtues save one, — ^moderation in respect to intoxicating 
drink. He had talents also. His personal appearance was 
fascinating, his manners courtly; his personality was that 
of a poet. And, within his nature, he had no small element 
of the spontaneous and unchecked impulse of the poet, as the 
next important event of his life indicated, for in February, 
1847, he abandoned the law and enlisted as a private in the 
^rmy for the Mexican War. 

Brigadier-General. — But by August the son of General 
Pierce was colonel of the Ninth Regiment in the army of Gen- 
eral Winfield Scott; and in March, 1848, he became a briga- 
dier-general of volunteers. At the battle of Contreras, August 
19, he was thrown from his horse and badly injured. 

President of State Constitutional Convention. — At 
the end of the war, General Pierce went home to Concord, and 
in 1850 presided at a Constitutional Convention of his State, 
unsuccessfully advocating on the floor the removal of the dis- 
abilities of non- Protestants in respect to the suffrage. This 
convention held its session for nearly two years, keeping 
Pierce prominently before the State. In January, 1852, the 
New Hampshire Legislature by resolution proposed him for 
the Presidency. And in June of that year, in the Democratic 
National Convention, New Hampshire brought forward his 
name upon the thirty-fifth ballot. 

Dark Horse Nominee. — The contest in the convention had 
been between Lewis Cass, the defeated candidate of 1848, 



4o8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

William L, Marcy of New York, and James Buchanan, — ^vet- 
erans all of them. The vote on the first ballot was — 

Cass ii6, Buchanan 93, Marcy 27, scattering 27. On the 
thirtieth ballot, Stephen A. Douglas had 92 votes. On the 
thirty-fifth, Cass had 131. But the two-thirds rule made 180 
votes necessary to a choice. Even as late as the forty-fifth 
ballot, when Pierce was being voted for, Marcy had 97 votes. 
On the forty-ninth ballot, Pierce won. 

The South in the Convention. — There were several 
reasons and causes for the selection of Pierce. One reason 
was that in peace and war he had always been popular and 
successful. Another reason was that he was a good Demo- 
crat in a Northern State. But the main causes were three : — 
first, the public already knew too much of Cass, of Marcy, and 
of Buchanan; second, the party leaders were forced to com- 
promise upon some one with a colorless record as to statesman- 
ship ; and, third, the two-thirds rule gave to the Southerners 
virtually a veto upon proceedings, for it was easy, as the 
ballots showed, to hold a minority of a third and more against 
every national politician. A "dark-horse" candidate again had 
won. 

With Pierce for President, the South named for the Vice- 
Presidency William R. King, of Alabama, who had been in 
the United States Senate thirty-two years and was already 
sixty-six years old. He survived but two years longer. 

The Whigs Try to Come to Life Again. — The Whigs 
were in great distress as to their proper course for coming to 
life again. Their candidates before the convention were Scott, 
Fillmore, and Webster. Even under the ordinary rule of the 
majority vote, it required fifty-three ballots for them to decide 
upon Scott. Thus, a brigadier-general of the Mexican War 
was pitted against a major-general of the same war. From 
the first, victory inclined to the Democracy. The Barnburners 
of New York, with Martin Van Buren at their head, returned 
to their Democratic allegiance. In the Electoral College, there 
was a landslide, the vote standing : 

Pierce 254, Scott 42. 

Democratic Landslide. — ^The Whigs had carried only 
Vermont, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 

The Compromise of 1850 had put the country to sleep. Only 



FRANKLIN PIERCE 409 

James Monroe had secured a greater Electoral College victory. 
And yet the popular plurality for Pierce was but 215,000. The 
Free Soilers had lost ground. In 1848 they had cast 291,000 
votes for Van Buren; in 1852 they cast only 156,000 for J. P. 
Hale. 

Personalities. — ^With the victory of Pierce over Scott, 
personality had much to do. Scott was big, lazy, pompous, 
uncouth, grandiose, servile. Taylor had made him unpopular 
with the people. Official Washington held him in humorous 
and ribald contempt, talking of him as a soldier stuffed for 
dress parade. Pierce was active, gracious, clean, apparently 
independent. In personal morals and in ability. Hale excelled 
each of them;^ but this nation votes by habit, which saves 
thinking and keeps it in a relatively fixed course. 

The Cabinet. — Ebbtide lasted for four years. Pierce 
chose a Cabinet, every one of whose members remained in 
office throughout the administration. It continued low tide 
and calm all over the surface of political society. The youngest 
President to that time handled the Presidency smoothly and 
skillfully. 

The Cabinet was notable : 

State, — William L. Marcy, author of the saying, "To the 
victor belong the spoils." 

War, — Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, grown rich and 
philosophical. 

Treasury, — James Guthrie of Kentucky, first president of 
the Louisville and Nashville railroad. 

Navy, — ^James C. Dobbin of North Carolina. 

Interior, — Robert McClelland of Michigan. 

Postmaster-General, — James Campbell of Pennsylvania. 

Attorney-General, — Caleb Gushing of Massachusetts, who 
had been envoy to China and was at the time on the bench of 
the Supreme Court of his State. 

It was an able Cabinet, not wholly proslavery, for Gushing 
was an abolitionist. In one respect, the Secretary of State 
dominated it, for Pierce set about replacing Whigs with Demo- 
crats, though as Senator he had himself objected to the spoils 
system. 

Domestic Sorrow. — Scarcely had Pierce been elected Presi- 
dent, when his only surviving son was killed in a railroad 
accident. This sorrow affected his own health and made his 

^3ee p. log, supra. 



4IO LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

wife an invalid. The parents never regained their former 
interest in Hfe. 

The Kansas-Nebraska Act. — The great domestic issue of 
the administration of Franklin Pierce was the Kansas-Ne- 
braska bill, with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The 
Free Soilers were quite right. — The Democrats and the Whigs 
were the two wings of the great proslavery party; and Fill- 
more the Whig was no more strongly abolitionist than Pierce 
the Democrat. Both were Northern men with Southern 
principles. 

In January, 1854, Senator Douglas introduced the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill. It provided that the people of each territory 
should decide whether or not to admit slavery. The two terri- 
tories lie north of the Missouri Compromise line. The doc- 
trine was one of the non-intervention of the National Govern- 
ment in the domestic affairs of the territories. The public 
called it "Squatter Sovereignty" because so many of the early 
settlers held their lands not by deed but by mere possession. 
Transients, adventurers, renegades, rascals, might decide the 
future of the trans-Missouri country. 

The South Abandons Its Historic Ground. — In the 
Senate, Cass favored the bill, and upon its passage in May, 
Pierce signed it. The South had now retreated from its 
sectionalism and was asserting its right to compete on equal 
terms everywhere in the territories that the Constitution of the 
United States ran. The Fugitive Slave Law had given to 
Southern slaveowners full right above Mason and Dixon's 
line to hunt slaves with the assistance of Federal and State 
courts, police, constables and militia. Now the Kansas-Ne- 
braska Act wiped out the Missouri Line.^ A new day was 
dawning. Few saw the storm in its wings. 

International Successes. — As Fillmore had done credi- 
table work abroad in international diplomacy, so did Tyler 
likewise. The Koszta affair of 1853 showed that the United 
States meant to protect its naturalized citizens abroad. In 
1848, Martin Koszta, Hungarian revolutionist, temporarily 
resident in this country, had taken out papers declaring his 
intention to become a citizen; but, in 1853, he went on per- 
sonal business to Smyrna, where the Austrian consul seized 
him, despite his American passport, and held him prisoner 
upon an Austrian brig-of-war. When an American captain 

*See pp. 297, 303. 



FRANKLIN PIERCE 411 

of a naval ship threatened to seize him, the Austrians turned 
him over to the French consul. The matter was then referred 
to the Austrian Ambassador Hulsemann and to Secretary of 
State Marcy. Eventually, Koszta was released, a fact that 
greatly increased the popularity of Marcy with the two and a 
half millions of immigrants of the last two decades. 

When during the Crimean War, the British government 
persisted in trying to secure recruits in the United States, 
Pierce gave to the minister, John F. Crampton, his passport 
and revoked the exequaturs of the British consuls at New 
York, at Philadelphia and at Cincinnati ; which dignified course 
put an end to the treatment of this nation as a British do- 
minion. Thereby, we kept out of the broils of France, Turkey, 
Sardinia and Russia. 

A treaty was negotiated with Japan in 1854. the outcome 
of Commodore Perry's expedition.^ 

Being like Polk an expansionist, in 1855, Pierce encouraged 
the Walker filibustering expedition into Nicaragua. Walker, 
poor fellow, when but thirty-six years of age, was court- 
martialed and shot in Honduras in September, i860! Pierce 
was no Cleveland or Roosevelt to interfere with a roar like 
war. 

The Gadsden Purchase. — ^The President favored the 
Gadsden Purchase of 45,000 square miles for $10,000,000, 
considerably increasing our lands by cession from Mexico. 
He also urged the survey of three routes westward for trans- 
continental railways, which many supposed would be built and 
operated by the Federal Government. 

"Bleeding Kansas." — But of what avail were all the clever 
and all the brave acts of international diplomacy^ in the face 
of the facts that the Democratic party was splitting into two 
parts, a Northern and a Southern ; and that the Northern now 
distrusted him and the Southern had used, and was now 
wearied of him? Four proslavery men had been territorial 
governors of Kansas, only to become "Free State" men from 
force of bitter experience. One set of men, struggling to hold 
Kansas, were styled "Black Republicans," the other "Sons of 
the South" and "Border Ruffians"; sieges, arsons, murders, 

^See p. 404, supra. 

^For the Ostend Manifesto, see p. 415, infra. 



412 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

battles, had changed the fruitful prairie into "Bleeding 
Kansas." 

In Retirement. — Pierce had no more chance of a reelection 
to the Presidency than had Tyler or Polk or Fillmore, each in 
his respective day. He had less chance than Van Buren. He 
was not renominated, or even seriously considered by many 
for renomination. In i860, some Southern Democrats talked 
of renominating him ; but he was then in Europe and refused 
to allow his name to be used, — wisely, for he could not have 
won even a renomination then. He remained abroad for three 
years when he returned to Concord, In 1 863 he made his most 
famous oration, that in which at the New Hampshire Capital 
he lauded Vallandigham as "that noble martyr of free speech."^ 
In this same year, his wife, the mother of his three sons, died. 

A Mediocre Man Cannot Be Expanded into a Presi- 
dent. — Pierce died of alcoholic inflammation of the stomach 
October 8, 1869. He left an estate of fifty thousand dollars, 
partly inherited. He had been a good lawyer, a fair legislator, 
and a patriotic soldier. He had failed to measure up to the 
Presidency. He had no large ideas, no foresight, no intense 
convictions. He grades with Fillmore, and scarcely above 
Buchanan. Goodness is not an essential in a President, — that 
is, the small goodness of private life. He might have done so 
many other things, so many greater things. The good ship 
of state needed a captain. Even a pilot would have served. A 
ladies* salon master of ceremonies let the ship drift toward the 
rocks and the breakers of war. 



CHAPTER XV 

James Buchanan 

1857-1861 

1791-1868 
31-34 States i860— Population 31,443,321 

Admitted : Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas. 

Many surviving Presidents among contemporaries — ancestry and early 
life — educated at Dickinson College — State Assemblyman — loses 
fiancee — Representative in Congress — impeachment of Judge Peck — 

*Seo pp. 461, 462, 464 466, infrck 



JAMES BUCHANAN 413 

the dogma of judicial infallibility — opposes State's rights — ambas- 
sador to Russia — United States Senator — in private life again — Min- 
ister to Great Britain — the Ostend Manifesto — Republican party 
formed — a veritable Cave of Adullam — President — a weak Cabinet — 
the Dred Scott decision — its obiter dicta — the Supreme Court — a 
perpetual sovereign — all the country to be slave-labor — the Demo- 
cratic party's volte face — Border RufHans and Black Republicans — 
the main issue — the various leaders — the Panic of 1857 — John Brown 
— Helper's Impending Crisis — the pitiful fate of Virginia — Personal 
Liberty Acts in Northern States — the various political conventions— 
the fatal interregnum — the opinion of Attorney General Black as to 
secession — Southern and Northern opinTons of Buchanan — a divided 
North — the Confederate States of North America organized — "On to 
Washington!" — the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln — Buchanan 
too old — a War Democrat. 

Several Former Presidents Survived to his Adminis- 
tration. — The fifteenth President of the people of the United 
States was born near Foltz, FrankHn County, Pennsylvania, 
on April 23, 1791. At the time of his inauguration, he was 
sixty-five years old. Four former Presidents were still alive, 
and they were all friends of his. None died during his term, 
and the younger two survived him. Van Buren, who had left 
office in 1841, was seventy-five years old; Tyler, retiring in 
1845, was sixty-six; Fillmore, out in 1853, fifty-seven; and 
Pierce but fifty-two. 

With most of their policies, James Buchanan was in agree- 
ment, — a heavy handicap. He belonged indeed to an elder age. 
A pitiless misfortune befell him in that he lived too long and 
was raised too high by the favor of the politically mighty. 

Ancestry; Early Life; Education. — The parents of 
Buchanan were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. His was the same 
racial stock that has given to us perhaps half our statesmen. 
He had a good elementary education, was graduated by Dick- 
inson College at Carlisle in 1809, and then studied law in Lan- 
caster. On coming of age in 1812, he was admitted to the 
bar. At twenty-three years of age. he went to the State Legis- 
lature for a term. After this service, he practiced law steadily 
and profitably. In this period, his fiancee died, and he remained 
faithful to her memory throughout life. 



414 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Representative in Congress; Impeachment of Judge 
Peck. — In 1 821, he was elected a member of Congress, serving 
five consecutive terms. As chairman of the House Judiciary 
Committee, Buchanan led a movement to impeach Judge James 
H. Peck of the United States Circuit Court The judge had 
rendered a decision, whose substance is immaterial. An at- 
torney. Lawless by name, was counsel for the defeated party. 
He saw the decision in a newspaper and answered it in the 
sam.e newspaper — to relieve his feelings. Judge Peck then held 
Counselor Lawless in contempt of court and literally lawless 
and outlaw, suspending him from practice for eighteen months. 
Upon the impeachment trial, the Senate, by 22 to 21, voted to 
acquit the Judge. President Jackson favored acquittal in order 
to damage Buchanan, whom he disliked and feared. It was 
another stage in the making of judges sacrosanct to all non- 
judges. In present public opinion, they are infallible, except 
when criticized and overruled by one another. Like Roman 
augurs chattering and incanting over the entrails of dead 
animals, how must judges chattering and incanting over the 
opinions of dead ages, sometimes feel like covering their faces 
lest they openly laugh at one another behind the bench and 
their huge law-tomes ! Even the errors of judges are errorless 
law — until discovered by other judges. Well-a-day, 'tis an 
unwearied old world, with perhaps some way out of its maun- 
derings ! Surely, the superstition of judicial infallibility will 
pass away in the course of time. It is a cheerful hope. And 
yet, judge-law is far better than mob-law or no law at all. 

Buchanan Opposes Van Buren. — Buchanan also' endeav- 
ored to have Congress increase the number of Supreme Court 
justices and to relieve them of their circuit duties. Van Buren. 
then in Congress, supported the first proposition but opposed 
the second, for two reasons, — first, that weak men sitting en 
banc could lean upon their fellows and escape exposure ; second, 
that judges needed to get away from the political atmosphere 
of Washington and out among the workers and leaders of in- 
dustry and commerce and all other affairs outside of govern- 
ment.^ Both movements were blocked successfully. The first, 
however, was right, the second wrong. Making any city purely 
political is to narrow its mankind into imbecility; such are the 
Washington helots. 

State's Rights. — Buchanan opposed the proposition to 

^See p. 202, supra. 



JAMES BUCHANAN 415 

take from the Supreme Court its jurisdiction in respect to col- 
lisions between national and State laws, especially in connection 
with treaties. Here Buchanan was successful in defeating a 
State's rights measure. It is difficult to see how in part at 
least the proposition was really feasible. Equality between 
States and nation in respect to treaties with foreign nations 
is inconceivable as well as unconstitutional ; and superiority of 
any or even many States would simply destroy the national 
government as such internationally.^ 

Ambassador to Russia. — At first a Federalist, Buchanan 
came into associations with Jackson and Van Buren, and 
succumbed to the influences of their stronger natures. In 
recognition of his allegiance, Jackson in 1832 sent him to St. 
Petersburg as ambassador and minister plenipotentiary. There 
he negotiated an important commercial treaty with Russia. 
In 1834, being at home again, he became United States Senator 
and served until 1845, when Polk made him Secretary of 
State. Throughout the administration of Taylor and Fill- 
more, Buchanan stayed at home in private life; but in 1853 
he accepted the call of Pierce to go as Minister to Great Britain. 

The Ostend Manifesto. — A single act of his while abroad 
brought him more fame than all that he had done before. On 
October 18, 1854, three of the American diplomats abroad, — 
Buchanan, J. Y. Mason, and Soule. — issued from Ostend a 
manifesto respecting alleged Spanish injuries to American 
commerce with Cuba. In this Manifesto, they asserted that 
"Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any 
of its present members." They said that they did not intend 
Cuba to be "Africanized" and hoped that the United States 
would purchase the island from Spain. The Manifesto ended 
with the remarkable declaration that if Spain would not sell 
Cuba and if she could not rule the island properly, then "by 
every law human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting 
it" from her. President Pierce promptly disavowed the Mani- 
festo ; but it had accomplished the purpose. By living abroad, 
Buchanan had kept out of the Kansas-Nebraska quarrel, and 
by this Manifesto he had won the heart of the South. He 
resigned his mission in 1856 and came home as an active can- 
didate again for the Presidential nomination of his party. 

Expansion of Slavery Causes New Party to Form. — 
The times had moved forward. The South had grown des- 

^See p. 62, supra. 



41 6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

perate and more aggressive. The North with its Kansas 
Colonization Society and its many abolitionists saw things more 
clearly. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had been sold by millions of 
copies. The Republican party, a veritable Cave of Adullam, 
was growing into shape, composed of many elements, — "Con- 
science Whigs," Know Nothings, Free Soilers, Liberty men, 
Anti-Masons, constitutional abolitionists, graded emancipa- 
tionists, high protective tariff advocates, strong centraliza- 
tionists. 

In the Democratic Convention at Cincinnati in ^846, Buch- 
anan was at once the leading candidate Cass declined to allow 
the use of his name. On the fourth ballot, Buchanan was 
nominated, and with him for the Vice-Presidency J. C. Breck- 
enridge of Kentucky. 

Over against these men, the Republicans set up the explorer 
and soldier of the Mexican and Indian wars. General John C. 
Fremont, son-in-law of Senator Thomas H. Benton, a brilliant 
man and a romantic figure in American history. He was to 
be the David of the Adullamites. With him, they nominated 
an excellent lawyer, William L. Dayton of New Jersey. The 
election opened the eyes of all the veteran politicians. The 
rallying cry of the Republicans was "Free soil, free speech, 
free men, and Fre'mont."^ 

Elected President. — Buchanan carried all the South save 
Maryland, which voted for Fillmore and Know Nothingism. 
In the North, the Democrats carried Pennsylvania, New 
Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, and California. The Electoral Col- 
lege voted : 

174 for Buchanan, 114 for Fremont, and 8 for Fillmore. 

The popular vote was. Democratic 1,838,000, Republican 
1,341,000, and Know Nothing- Whig 874,500. In other words, 
Buchanan was the choice of less than half of the people. The 
combined vote of his opponents was 2,215,500, or 377,500 
more than this own.^ 

His Cabinet. — For his Cabinet, he chose several men of 
first-rate standing. Howell Cobb, his Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, was an ardent State's rights, proslavery man, and perhaps, 
from his Congressional experience, the most prominent of all 
at the time of entering the administration. 

^See p. 113, supra. "Compare p. 444, 445, infra. 



JAMES BUCHANAN 417 

The Cabinet. — State, — Lewis Cass of Michigan, three 
years and nine months ; Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania, 
three months. 

Treasury, — Howell Cobb of Georgia, three years and nine 
months; Phihp F. Thomas of Maryland, one month; John A. 
Dix of New York, two months. 

War, — ^John B. Floyd of A^irginia, three years and ten 
months ; John Holt of Kentucky, two months. 

Attorney-General, — ^Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania, 
three years and nine months; Edwin M. Stanton of Pennsyl- 
vania, three months. 

Postmaster-General, — Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee, two 
years; Joseph Holt of Kentucky, nearly two years; Horatio 
King of Maine, two months. 

Navy, — Isaac Toucey of Connecticut. 

Interior, — Jacob Thompson of Mississippi. 

Dred Scott Decision. — Two days after the inauguration 
of Buchanan the country was thrown into ferment by the 
Dred Scott decision, in which the Supreme Court was divided 
7 to 2. The South was gratified; most of the North was 
pleased, the rest of it horrified. For his guidance in writing 
his inaugural, the nature of the decision was communicated 
to Buchanan a week or so earlier. By this decision, the Court 
declared that a slave was property only and in no sense a 
citizen; being therefore without standing in court any more 
than a horse or a tree. Whether or not this was the law, 
present debate is useless. We ourselves are discussing now 
matters some day to be quite as archaic as the theme of 
chattel-slavery. Some jurists, however, do not think that the 
slave had no standing in court, but that a slave was a person 
held to service, in other words, a human being with some 
rights as such. If possessed of any rights whatsoever, then 
the slave was possessed of the right to appear in court in 
defense of these rights by attorney or in person. If possessed 
of no rights, then his master might kill him without possibility 
of judicial cognizance being taken, provided only that the kill- 
ing should not be under conditions creating a public disturb- 
ance or a public nuisance. It is hard to see now that even the 
main feature of the Dred Scott decision was ever the law. 

The Dissenting Judges. — But there were two members 



4i8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

of the Court who dissented, shrewd men and good lawyers. 
They forced old Judge Taney in his decrepitude of eighty 
years into obiter dicta that directly violated the Constitution. 
It was relentless politics for Justices McLean and Curtis to 
do this and measureless folly for the associates of the Chief 
to proslavery extremists. Though he had been a lawyer with 
many clients among the slavetraders and slaveowners, still 
hitherto Taney as a judge had appeared the perfect legalist. 

Judge Taney went on to say unnecessarily, — First, even if 
in the Louisiana territory, slavery is forbidden above the Com- 
promise line or otherwise, still by merely residing in the Ter- 
ritory, Dred Scott did not become free. [Lord Mansfield had 
decided otherwise for slaves touching the soil of England, and 
he knew some English common law.^] It is no longer doubt- 
ful whether or not this was the law. The opinion is that in 
default of return to slave soil within a reasonable time, the 
ownership of the slave was waived and became automatically 
divested. And Dred Scott had not been promptly taken back 
by his owner. Sand ford, but in fact had lived with him for 
years upon free soil, voluntarily remaining with him. The 
legal trouble came only when upon moving to Kentucky, Sand- 
ford undertook to sell Dred to another person. 

The Compromise of 1850 Void. — This, however, was not 
the more dangerous of the two main obiter dicta of the Court. 
The majority held that, for want of constitutionality, the Com- 
promise of 1820 was null and void; for thirty-seven years, the 
nation had been governed by a law that was no law. Candidly 
considered, here was cause on cause for astonishment. The 
bold doctrine of John Marshall was turned to plague the 
land. Sovereignty vested in judges, for the first time since 
Samuel, priest and judge, made Saul King; and for more than 
a generation, the sovereigns had slept. The Supreme Court 
was a perennial Constitutional Convention above all ratification 
by the people, makers of the grammar and rhetoric and logic 
of their thought. In effect, the decision opened to slavery all 
the Northwest from the Mississippi to Puget Sound, an area 
greater than all the Southeast from Baltimore and Key West 
to the Panhandle of Texas. It was a^victory for the aggressive 
slave barons, an appalling victory. Whereupon, Justice Curtis 
who, like Samson, had pulled down the Philistine temple upon 
^See p. 528, infra. 



JAMES BUCHANAN 419 

himself, resigned from the Court/ What mattered it now that 
California had come in free? The slave lords held all the 
western side of the Mississippi, all the Missouri valley, all of 
the Puget Sound country and of the plateaus of the Rocky 
Mountains. Nor was this the worst. Taney had not said in 
words this the worst thing; but one had only to read in 
the light of the decision the language of the Kansas-Nebraska 
Act and to trace the course of legislation and of judicial inter- 
pretation to see without possibility of error that a slave might 
be taken into a free State and held there as such under Federal 
law, whatever might be the State's own Constitution and legis- 
lation. The South had shifted its ground. It was not now 
for State's rights but for the National sovereignty and for 
centralization. It was a change of front, at once astounding 
and perilously critical. 

The Border Ruffians. — Furious as had been the struggle 
in Kansas and elsewhere, it now grew worse. Buchanan made 
Robert J. Walker, a native of Pennsylvania, who had moved 
into Mississippi, territorial governor of Kansas.^ In prepara- 
tion for statehood, the people of Kansas adopted first one con- 
stitution and then another, under extraordinary conditions. 
The Border Ruffians got control of the election in the first 
instance and the Black Republicans in the other.^ And Walker, 
seeing that Buchanan meant to interpret "popular sovereignty" 
in the terms of special favors to proslavery, though himself 
proslavery, foresaw that in the end Kansas would turn over- 
whelmingly for wage-service labor and resigned in anger at 
the interference of Buchanan in favor of the Lecompton pro- 
slavery Constitution. 

The Course of Buchanan. — There are two explanations 
put forth for the course pursued by the President. The first 
is that he was playing for the favor of the South in order to 
win a renomination ; Pierce and other Presidents had failed 
to secure renominations by their own parties. It comports 

^See pp. 80, 82, infra. There is not the slightest reason for any Northern 
felicitation upon this resignation. Judge Curtis was influenced to resign 
largely by his own financial interests, especially in banking. Judge Taney 
died almost penniless. He was incorruptible, being indifferent to money 
considerations. 

'See pp. 194, 384, supra. 'See p. 112, supra. 



420 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

with this explanation that Buchanan was a skillful politician; 
but it assumes that he was no patriot, for he was fomenting 
disorder in Kansas. This assumption will not hold water. 
The second explanation is that, surrounded by Secretaries and 
prodded by Senators who were mostly aggressive proslavery 
advocates, the old man thought that the crushing down of the 
free-labor Jayhawkers in Kansas by the boot-and-saddle Mis- 
souri ruffians was the price by which the nation could be saved 
from disunion and ultimate dissolution. It comports with this 
explanation that Buchanan was a patriot, but assumes that he 
was no statesman. This assumption also will not hold water. 
Sacrificing Kansas, when out of its superabundance of popula- 
tion, the North was pouring white free-labor into the Terri- 
tory, was but incensing the real majority of the nation and 
trying to defeat its pursuit of the ultimate national interests. 
For to a statesman living above sectional influences and seeing 
affairs in the large, a Kansas with prairies industriously farmed 
by millions of free whites was a far nobler vision than a Kansas 
with prairies sectioned off in great plantations lazily cultivated 
by hundreds of thousands of colored slaves. 

Threatened Civil War Everywhere. — ^What was already 
happening in Kansas, — of which the madness of John Brown 
was a fair sample, — by the statesman should be seen in extenso 
as happening from Osawatomie to Astoria, — battle after battle, 
in guerrilla warfare between slavery and freedom. The slave- 
holders of Missouri, the owners of two or three slaves as well 
as the owners of hundreds, saw their human live stock taking 
to its legs and getting under the protection of the guns of ten 
thousands of John Browns; and their course of action was 
perfectly natural. Let us put an end to John Browns as far 
as the Canadian border. Such was the logical outcome of the 
Dred Scott decision. And such was the work of Buchanan, 
viewing himself as the chief guardian of the peace and order 
of American society. 

Senator Douglas. — Therefore, President Buchanan used 
Federal patronage not only to force the admission of Kansas 
as a State with a proslavery Constitution but in 1858 to defeat 
the reelection of Douglas of Illinois to the United States 
Senate. Douglas had been his chief rival for the nomination 
at Cincinnati,^ and was the foremost Northern exponent of 
Democratic doctrine. But he still persisted in the delusion of 

^See pp. 439 et seq., infra. 



JAMES BUCHANAN 421 

popular sovereignty; and the new Democratic doctrine of 
Taney, Yancey, Toombs, and Davis had rejected that delusion 
in favor of the constitutional necessity of slavery in every ter- 
ritory. Already, they were talking of buying and selling and 
whipping their slaves "in the streets of Boston." Already, 
like the lords they were, they strode about the streets of Wash- 
ington and through the halls and rooms of the National build- 
ings, in haughty assurance that they owned the Supreme Court 
and the Administration and would soon recover control of 
Congress. With the swagger went the threat: — The whole 
Government must be ours, or we will form a nation in the 
South that is wholly ours; and the North cannot stand that! 
It was the pride that goeth before destruction, 

Wage-Service Wins. — But for all the keen debating of 
Abraham Lincoln, who was playing Buchanan's game for him 
but from an entirely different purpose, Douglas of Illinois did 
go back to the Senate; and for all the clever managing of 
Buchanan, Kansas came in as a free State in January, 1861. 
The population had grown from 800 whites, some negroes, and 
several thousand Indians in 1853 to 102,000 in i860, nearly 
all whites, scarcely more negroes, and even less Indians. Foot- 
loose wage-service laborers had captured the prairie. And the 
Kansas border warfare with its outrages, ambushes, assassina- 
tions, rapine and fraud, was soon to be nationalized into a 
civil war, for which more than any others Taney and Buchanan 
must be held responsible. 

The Panic of 1857. — In 1857 a panic set in. A bank in 
Cincinnati failed for $7,000,000; this was the start of the gen- 
eral ruin. Nearly all the banks of the country failed, as they 
had failed in the days of Martin Van Buren. The new rail- 
ways could not pay interest on their debts. Factories shut 
down. Merchants failed in business. Millions were out of 
work. The enormous production of gold in California had 
inflated prices, just as prior to 1837 too free credit in the days 
of paper money had inflated prices. A flood of money, real 
or fiat, always makes trouble. 

Harper's Ferry. — On October 17, 1859, John Brown made 
his raid into Virginia at Harper's Ferry. In itself, this mad 
raid accomplished nothing. Brown was hanged on December 
2d. But the event was of startlingly dramatic importance. 
Helper's "Impending Crisis," first published in 1857, had 



422 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

taught the world what "the poor white trash" of the South 
thought of slavery, which left no room for a middle class. 
John Brown's raid taught the world what a poor white man 
of the North thought of the rights of the colored slave; he 
was ready to die for his "brother in black,"^ Brown was, of 
course, a fanatic; but the shuffling of President James Buch- 
anan was calculated to produce just this kind of fanatic who 
saw men in blacks-and-whites. 

At the execution of John Brown were Robert E. Lee, Col- 
onel U. S. A., and "Stonewall" Jackson; and in the squad 
that had fired upon him at his capture was one John Wilkes 
Booth.^ Upon that fatal second day of December, 1859, 
Virginia was surely laying up ruin for herself. Executing 
John Brown was folly greater than his own fanatic madness. 
The worst that ever befell Virginia was to educate Lee and 
Jackson into the secession spirit to the point of bloodshed and 
Booth into the murdering of one who was Virginia's best 
friend. 

The Fate of Virginia. — Slavery had turned "the moiher 
of Presidents" into a breeding-ground for colored persons, 
had ruined her own agriculture, and had driven out hundreds 
of thousands of whites. Secession was to turn the counties 
where Washington, Marshall, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, 
Harrison, and Tyler were born and reared into the cemeteries 
of hundreds of thousands of gallant soldiers, whom the nation, 
including Virginia, needed. The hanging of Brown for his 
crime was entirely legal. So also had been the Lecompton 
Constitution. And Buchanan was a legalist, as his final acts 
as President were about to show. It is often unwise to stick 
to legality. Nations seldom change their laws until after 
they have outgrown them. Excessive legality in epochs of 
misfit is not good sense. 

Personal Liberty Acts. — The States of the North had 
answered the Fugitive Slave Act with Personal Liberty Acts 
conceived in the spirit of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolu- 
tions and of the South Carolina Nullification Ordinance. They 
had found ways to protect the underground railroad. 

^Brown had the common Northern delusion that a negro is a white man 
with a black face. No self-respecting negro ever thought that ; and it never 
was either kindness or good sense to think so. 

*See pp. 469 et seq., infra. 



JAMES BUCHANAN 423 

Negroes Imported. — The South, however, had found ways 
to bring in negroes from Africa and despite the Federal laws, 
in the period from 1857 ^^ i860 did in fact import many tens 
of thousands ; how many is not accurately known ; perhaps in 
all several hundred thousand. Sectionalism had become an 
undeniable fact. James Buchanan was the first to learn this. 
His own party broke into three fragments, not one of which 
cared for him. 

The Democratic Party Splits into Fragments. — The 
Democratic Convention met first at Charleston, South Caro- 
lina, late in April, i860. It split into two parts, 45 votes in 
303, representing Florida Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, 
left the Convention Hall, angered at certain pro-Douglas reso- 
lutions, for Douglas had rejected the policy of the nationaliza- 
tion of slavery, — in other terms, he had won the Senatorship 
and split his party. The remaining 258 delegates could not 
agree upon a Presidential candidate and adjourned to meet at 
Baltimore in May. There only 191^ votes appeared, for of 
the 258, 66y2 more votes had seceded. But 8 reappeared; and 
waiving its two-thirds rule, so far as it concerned the entire 
303, the Democratic Convention cast all but ten of its votes 
for Douglas as Presidential candidate. With him was asso- 
ciated as Vice-Presidential nominee Judge Herschel V. John- 
son of Georgia. Far worse and weaker men than Douglas have 
been Presidents. 

Ten days later, the seceders from the Democratic Conven- 
tion met also at Baltimore. This group promptly nominated 
Vice-President J. C. Breckenridge of Kentucky for the Presi- 
dency and Joseph Lane for the Vice-Presidency. Lane was a 
Major-General of the Mexican War and United States Senator 
from Oregon. 

In May, a third party had met at Baltimore. It had one 
plank only in its platform — union under the Constitution. It 
nominated John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of 
Massachusetts. Bell had long been United States Senator, 
and Everett had been Representative in Congress, President 
of Harvard College, Governor of Massachusetts, Minister to 
England, and Cabinet Secretary. This was a ticket of able and 
highly cultivated gentlemen. 

Lincoln Nominated. — Also In May, but at Chicago, the 
Republicans had met. This was the second Convention to go 



424 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

west of the Alleghanies.^ The delegates were in the Illinois 
atmosphere; and Illinois Republicanism was all for Abraham 
Lincoln/ The Convention nominated Lincoln, and with him 
Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, who had been Governor and was 
then United States Senator. Hamlin was almost a statesman. 
Who was Abraham Lincoln? Not many knew. The party 
had rejected its real leader, William H. Seward. Apparently, 
Lincoln was not in the same class with Douglas, Breckenridge 
or Bell. 

Buchanan had been shoved aside, and in the terrific campaign 
that resulted, was forgotten. Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell 
each hoped to throw the election into Congress for want of 
a majority in the Electoral College. 

Of them all, Lincoln alone hoped to win immediately. He 
had but little experience with national affairs on a large scale 
and was correspondingly optimistic. The fates were with 
him, and he won. 

The Fatal Interregnum. — An interregnum set in. South 
Carolina immediately by its legislature called for a convention 
to consider secession. She who had defied Jackson' did not 
hesitate to defy President Buchanan and President-elect Lin- 
coln. In his annual message, sent to Congress on December 
4, i860, Buchanan called upon Jeremiah S. Black for his legal 
opinion as United States Attorney-General as to the Secession 
Ordinance of South Carolina. The Pennsylvania jurist and 
legalist set forth, first, that no State has any legal right to 
secede; second, that no legal right is vested in the Federal 
Government to prevent secession; third, that by his oath of 
office, the President is obligated to protect Federal property 
everywhere and to enforce Federal laws everywhere. The 
Fathers had not foreseen such a crisis. 

Two Legalists. — Attempts of several kinds were made to 
stop the break-up of the Union. Compromise measures were 
offered sincerely, even confidently, in Congress. An amend- 
ment to the Constitution was agreed upon, — Lincoln himself 
favored it. A Peace Congress was held.* But the Fireaters 
resigned from the Cabinet and from the Senate, angrily calling 

^See p. 416, supra. 'See'pp. 337 et seq., supra. 

"See pp. 442, 443, infra. *See p. 378, supra. 



JAMES BUCHANAN 425 

Buchanan "senile," and preparing to set up their own govern- 
ment 

More Northern Senators. — On May 11, 1858, the 
Northern State of Minnesota and on February 14, 1859, 
Oregon were admitted. The South was losing ground in the 
gerrymandered United States Senate, its one hope/ All the 
South foresaw the wind-up of political power. It was inevi- 
table that Kansas should come in anti-slavery, which it did 
upon January 29, 1861. But this move had already been dis- 
counted by political prophets. 

Secession Grows. — One after another, sometimes by close 
votes, the Southern States seceded. They did what Phillips 
and other Abolitionists desired the North to do because of 
the Dred Scott decision. Yet there were many Unionists even 
among the slaveholders themselves and many more among the 
non-slaveholders.^ 

Of the Secession movement false views prevail. Nearly 
all of it occurred in the administration of Buchanan, two of 
whose own Secretaries, — Cobb and Floyd, — formulated it and 
even turned over Federal property in quantities to the South- 
ern States, perhaps more than their share. It was by no 
means unanimous in the South. But in the end, it involved 
nearly every Southerner of social and political standing. In 
part, it was a sincere protest against Northern hypocrisy and 
duplicity and wavering. 

Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, resigned December 14, i860, 
not because he was a secessionist but for the opposite reason, — 
because he desired the forts at Charleston reinforced, and 
Buchanan rejected his advice. Six days later, South Carolina 
adopted the Secession Ordinance. Lossing, the historian, was 
at the home of Cass at Washington when the news was re- 
ceived. The aged statesman exclaimed: "The people of the 
South are mad ; the people of the North are asleep. The Presi- 
dent is pale with fear, for his official household is full of 
traitors, and conspirators control the government. God only 
knows what is to be the fate of my poor country!" 

While a Charleston newspaper, "The Mercury," was styling 
Buchanan "that hoary trickster and humbug," the Springfield 

^See pp. 170; 397, supra, for opposite forces, 
"See p. 80, supra, and p. 483, infra. 



426 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

(Massachusetts) "Republican" cried: "Oh, for an hour of 
Andrew Jackson !" 

It Might Have Been Different. — The four months that 
intervene between the election and the inauguration of a Presi- 
dent constitute a serious defect in the constitutional provisions 
for the making of that officer. Since the November election in 
i860, every one had known who was to be President; and yet 
a different kind of man was actually in office. The original 
legislation had provided for this long period of time for two 
reasons, — first, because in the days before steam and electricity, 
eleven or twelve weeks was none too long a time; second, 
because the business of the Electoral College would seldom, 
so it was supposed, effect more than several nominations, and 
Congress would really make the choice.^ Instead of eleven or 
twelve weeks, a fortnight or at most a month would suffice 
at present. If Lincoln had become President by December i, 
i860, the history of this nation would have been greatly dif- 
ferent.^ 

When, early in October, i860, the Governor of South Caro- 
lina first proposed secession, four States sent replies distinctly 
opposing the movement, — North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, 
and Louisiana ; only Florida was as belligerent as South Caro- 
lina. Georgia indeed was finally carried out of the Union by 
the assertion of Howell Cobb, who retired from the Cabint^ 
of Buchanan and declared that the South could "make better 
terms out of the Union than in it." This assertion meant that 
secession, to his notion, was a threat in action, not a proposi- 
tion for a permanent new nation. 

But in accordance with the Constitution, the "State patriots" 
were given time to organize their forces before Lincoln came 
in ; and one by one, the Southern States were brought into line. 
South Carolina went out on December 20; Mississippi on 
January 9; Florida on January 10; Alabama on January 11, 
by a vote of 61 yeas to 39 nays, the northern delegates being 
nays ; Georgia on January 1 8, with such men as Alexander H. 
Stephens and Herschel V. Johnson among the 89 nays to 208 
yeas ; Louisiana on January 26 ; and Texas February i , with 
Governor Sam Houston among the 7 nays to 166 yeas. 

^See Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, Vol. II, July 25 et 
passim. 
^See pp. 128, 163, supra; 447, 448, infra. 



JAMES BUCHANAN 427 

A Divided North. — The North was awestruck. Many of 
the leaders of opinion, many newspapers, whole sections coun- 
selled peace at any price. Even Horace Greeley, Thurlow 
Weed, and Wendell Phillips deprecated force and coercion. 
They believed in government by influence, which is a cheat. 
Daniel E. Sickles, in the House of Representatives, said that 
New York City also would secede ; and the Democratic Mayor, 
Fernando Wood, advised her to do so. Early in January, 
1861, the "Star of the West" had been fired upon in Charles- 
ton Harbor in an attempt to relieve Major Robert Anderson, 
who was trying to hold Fort Sumter against South Carolina 
troops, ships and artillery. And Buchanan did nothing. To 
the paralyzed Presidency, a Cabinet regency succeeded, with 
several new Secretaries, including Stanton, to be so famous 
under Lincoln and Johnson. But on January 1 1 , General John 
A. Dix of New York succeeded to the Treasury and on the 
29th instant, he sent a telegram to a subordinate customs 
officer, which read — "H any one attempts to haul down the 
American flag, shoot him on the spot." This was tonic in its 
nature and effects. Government is force; otherwise it is 
farce. 

The Confederacy Organized. — On February 9, 1861, the 
oath of allegiance was taken to the new Confederate States 
of North America ; and Jefferson Davis was elected President 
with Alexander H. Stephens as Vice-President. Either Robert 
Toombs of Georgia, former United States Senator, or Howell 
Cobb would have made an abler President. Each had sup- 
porters for the office.^ 

General Winfield Scott. — There was talk of interference 
with the meeting of the Senate to count the Electoral College 
votes on February 13; but though Winfield Scott, head of 
the army, was seventy-five years old and sympathized in a gen- 
eral way with the South,^ he smelled the battle afar off, and 
with threats of blowing traitors' heads off at cannon mouths 
and with actual mustering of troops, made battle impossible. 
It was the most creditable performance of all his life. The 
votes were quietly counted and announced by Vice-President 
Breckenridge. He himself had seventy-two votes. A month 
later, he became United States Senator; yet though his State 

^See p. 417. *See p. 164, supra. 



428 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

did not secede, in September he joined the Confederacy and 
became brigadier-general. 

The "Enquirer" Speaks. — Next, the Confederates pro- 
posed to make Washington City the Capital of the Confed- 
eracy. Said the Richmond (Virginia) "Enquirer," — "Our 
people can take it, — they will take it. Scott, the arch-traitor, 
and Lincoln, the beast, cannot prevent it. The Tllinois Ape' 
must retrace his journey more rapidly than he came." The 
Southerners talked too freely. They hoped to win by threats 
and bravado. But a new epoch had come. 

A Dramatic Scene. — More serious was the plan to assassi- 
nate Lincoln.^ Whatever it was, it failed. He arrived duly 
in Washington, and on March 4, 1861, was inaugurated. 
Beside Lincoln sat James Buchanan, a ceremonious old gentle- 
man confused in this mess of affairs ; next to him sat Stephen 
A. Douglas, his leading rival, cool, polite, and comforting, — 
he held President Lincoln's extra tall silk hat in his hand while 
the reading of the eloquent inaugural proceeded. The oath of 
office was administered by Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of 
the United States, who had helped to make Lincoln President 
and to convert a land of peace into a land soon to echo with 
battle-shouts and to flow with brothers' blood. Four men they 
were, — and they represented three parties, the old Taney- 
Buchanan party of slavery, the new Douglas party of slavery 
but no secession, and the rising Lincoln party of no secession 
whether with or without slavery. When and where was there 
ever a more startling group of great statesmen in a more 
dramatic peaceful scene? 

Buchanan too Diplomatic. — It is not true that our oldest 
Presidents have been the worst. Nor is the contrary true that 
the youngest Presidents have been the worst. But it is true 
that our old Presidents who had been long in political life have 
been poorer Presidents than Zachary Taylor, who knew noth- 
ing of practical politics until he was himself by the fortunes of 
a successful war and the needs of a political party the Presi- 
dential candidate. A little audacity, a little directness and 
some force, a little recklessness and some promptitude; in 
other words, less diplomacy, would have saved James Buch- 
anan to a memory of higher honor, 

A War Democrat. — Then the kind, obfuscated old bache- 
lor, the former President, went home to Lancaster, Penn- 

^See p. 448, infra. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 429 

sylvania. He had saved up $200,000. He wrote a book en- 
titled "Mr. Buchanan's Administration," which was published 
in 1866. He died of rheumatic gout at Wheatland, his estate 
near Lancaster, June i, 1868, being full of years and memories 
and regrets, for once out of the toils of the South, out of the 
political atmosphere of Washington, nearly always bad, and 
often worse, he saw his mistakes, — too late, too late. 

During the administrations of Lincoln and of Johnson, James 
Buchanan exerted but little influence. He was, however, a 
sincere War Democrat. Let Americans recall him with pity. 
He had played politics too long to know how to fight a war, 
for the Interstate War began with the Kansas-Nebraska bill 
in the days of Franklin Pierce, whose unfortunate heir he was. 
Small wonder that aged James Buchanan spent uneasy years 
in his lonely bachelor retirement, reviewing his Presidency 
and its aftermath, — ruinous war, still more ruinous reconstruc- 
tion of the war-wrecked Southern land, and a national gov- 
ernment debauched of standards of efficiency and honesty. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Abraham Lincoln 

1861-1865 
1809-1865 

34-23-26-36 States Population 21,000,000 

Admitted: West Virginia, Nevada. 35,000,000 

The wide awake campaign compared with the log cabin and hard cider 
campaign of "Old Tip" Harrison — the "railsplitter" — his sources of 
popular strength — most interesting of all Americans — why Valley 
Forges arise — the patience of Abraham Lincoln — the stories — early 
life — personal appearance — death of his mother — ^his stepmother — 
his dress — his books — Black Hawk War — storekeeper — ^his debts- 
postmaster — State Assemblyman — ^borrows $200 — death of Ann Rut- 
ledge — melancholy — service in the Legislature — lawyer — the strange 
story of courtship and marriage — ^more melancholy — his law partners 
— some law cases — a total abstinence exhorter — a Whig in Congress — 
opposes Mexican War but votes for supplies— visits New England — 
in a way, a National Socialist — advises purchasing the slaves — op- 



430 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

poses Stephen A. Douglas— Shields and Trumbull— Vice-Presidential 
ambitions in 1856— the Lincoln-Douglas debates— "a house divided 
against itself cannot stand" — the "Freeport heresy" — the Cooper 
Union speech — his poverty — an American Socrates — his intellectual 
quality, exhaustive reflection — wins the Republican nomination — at- 
tacked by Wendell Phillips as "a slave-hound"— the fight of i860 
against Douglas— the old sectionalism— a dark horse candidate— a 
minority President— the interregnum— predicts his own assassination— 
his Cabinet— a good helmsman for the Union Ship of State— call for 
volunteers— the Border States— Baltimore cut off— West Virginia 
secedes from Virginia— the locations of the Capitols— the proslavery 
strength— the "war powers" of the President and of the Constitution 
—habeas corpus— a. rejected Constitution— General McClellan— Secre- 
tary Stanton — a War President — Congress — the armies — Grant wins 
Fort Donelson — WilHe Lincoln dies — Monitor wins at Hampton Roads 
— Southern events — A. S, Johnston killed — the Wilkes affair — "one 
war at a time" — the slaves — more of McClellan — Chancellorsville — 
Stonewall Jackson killed — Antietam — the Emancipation Proclamation — 
Lincoln as a writer — enlisting negroes as soldiers — Gettysburg — Vicks- 
burg — Grant — Vallindigham — the New York draft riot — the Gettys- 
burg speech — politics in 1864 — reelected — Sherman marches to the 
sea — Thomas at Nashville — Sheridan — at Winchester — Chase made 
Chief Justice — the "Alabama" — the Second Inaugural — the negro 
rights amendments — Lee surrenders at Appomattox — Lincoln is killed 
— Seward also is assassinated but survives — cause of the conspiracy — 
unconstitutional punishment of conspirators — ^the common affliction 
of incompetent government — Walt Whitman, poet of democracy, 
quoted. 

The Wide Awake Campaign of i860. — "One whose meek 
flock the people joyed to be!" Such is the verdict of the poet 
Lowell upon Lincoln. How pitifully untrue! Not until Appo- 
mattox did he govern the land. Upon hearing that he was 
to be President, one-third of the people flew to arms against 
the Government over which he was to preside. Nor were the 
people ever joyous over this strangest of human beings, our 
first martyr President, slain by one of his own unwilling com- 
patriots, son of the foreign-born. 

We may wonder greatly at the log cabin and hard cider 
campaign of "Old Tip" Harrison in 1840; and at that of "Old 
Rough and Ready" Taylor in 1848. It was rather undignified 
to put "Old Hickory" Jackson into the Presidential office, made 
outwardly splendid by George Washington, widely influential 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 431 

by Thomas Jefferson; and startlingly effective by Andrew 
Jackson. But to make a "railsplitter" and "flatboatman/' a 
grotesque giantesque "ape," as he was brutally styled by some/ 
partly because of his name "Abe" and partly because of his 
appearance, President in an epoch of crisis equal to that of 
1776, upon a stage of action far wider, was an experiment 
more amazing than any that had gone before. 

But for the campaigns of Harrison and Taylor, Abraham 
Lincoln could never have been elected, or even nominated. 
They prepared the way for the Republican "Wide Awake" 
Clubs of i860, which nightly for months held meetings and 
processions in nearly every town and village of the North. 

His Apparent Unfitness. — Lincoln had never been United 
States Senator; or even Governor of his State; or minister 
abroad; or a Cabinet chief; or even a brigadier-general. Of 
the fifteen Presidents before him, not one but had reached 
greater distinction prior to election. Closely analyzed, upon 
their records, only Jackson and Taylor were less prepared by 
official experience than Lincoln for the Presidency. 

Sources of Popular Strength. — Likely enough, thou- 
sands of voters saw the point; we had far worse Presidents 
than Jackson and Taylor. Lincoln was not even a college 
graduate or a fairly well educated man; Jackson and Taylor 
were not well educated. Probably, Lincoln was a rough and 
uncouth man. The voters were rough and uncouth. The plain 
people liked the idea of a plain man to face the crisis. They 
had seen enough of gentlemen, — Tyler, Polk, Fillmore, Pierce, 
and Buchanan had palled upon their taste. Bell and Everett 
had drawn the votes of gentlemen in the North, Douglas and 
Johnson those of the business men and standpatters, and 
Breckenridge and Lane the masses of the cities. The farmers 
of the country districts, the mechanics of the cities and towns, 
and the young voters (who in fact cast one-seventh of the total 
vote in Presidential elections) made Abraham Lincoln Presi- 
dent. Some chuckled over his manners, some liked his ideas, 
some distrusted all his opponents because of their records and 
affiliations. 

Most Interesting of All Americans. — It is the fortune 
of but few human beings to become so interesting to others 
that they desire to know the minutiae of their ancestors, 
persons, characters, deeds, ideas, circumstances and daily lives. 

^See p. 429, supra. 



432 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Abraham Lincoln is one of those few. All the world has asked 
his parentage, height, weight, color of hair, whether he slept 
well o' nights, his deeds, his ideas, his poverty, failures, fail- 
ings, successes, sins, virtues. The story of the early days of 
Lincoln is more familiar to Americans than is the story of the 
early days of any other President, of any other American, of 
any other man. There are more lives of Lincoln, more his- 
tories of his times, more essays, addresses, monographs about 
him than about any other three Americans together. As a 
theme of human interest and concern, he surpasses any other 
man of our history. Why? Because he was perfect? No. 
Because he affords so many points for praise? No. 

Valley Forge. — The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln was 
one long spiritual Valley Forge. They misconceive George 
Washington and his Valley Forge and Abraham Lincoln and 
the misery of the Interstate War who fancy that they them- 
selves were in no way responsible for their sufferings. Like all 
other men, Washington and Lincoln were in part miakers of 
their own fates day by day. To most generals, Valley Forges 
are impossible; to most statesmen, such periods as that of the 
Interstate War are impossible. They arise from indomitable 
endurance without sufficient ability and resources promptly to 
prevail. 

His Patience. — The root of the character of Lincoln was 
patience, — ^he had faith in the final victory of patience. There 
is no way to destroy such a man other than to bear and to 
overbear, to wait and wait and wait still longer than he. The 
patient man cannot be uprooted. The patience of Lincoln 
became the source of his popular strength ; the common people 
are surprised, astounded, dismayed by genius, but they under- 
stand and confide in patience. They live by enduring. Forti- 
tude is easier than courage. The draft horse is no war- 
charger, no race-winner. In a sense, fortitude is moral cour- 
age ; in another sense, fortitude is evidence of peasant-ancestry. 

"Endurance is the crowning quality. 
And patience all the passion of great hearts." 

Not that Lincoln was always conventionally patient. Once, 
he himself carried an insolent office-seeker out of the White 
House, with one great hand gripping the man's coatcollar and 
with the other gripping the seat of his breeches. Still, he 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 433 

didn't knock him doAvn or swear at him; he carried him out, 
bore him away, and deposited him out of doors — firmly, gently, 
finally. 

The Lincoln Stories. — All Americans know the Lincoln 
stories, — how he trotted about the Departments to help indi- 
viduals in need, and incidentally to get the outdoor air, to see 
the real folks, and to avoid undesirables; how he pardoned 
hundreds of small offenders, which always is good politics as 
well as good religion ; how he visited the army hospitals ; how 
he told stories to illustrate his arguments; how he read his 
Bible far into the night and rose early, breakfasting on toast 
and tea; how he passed often suddenly from grave to gay, 
and from gay to grave; how eagerly he scanned the war 
news ; how skillfully or unskill fully he directed his generals and 
secretaries; how he waited and waited the fullness of time to 
publish the Emancipation Proclamation; how he was always 
getting things done. He was patient, judicious, indefatigable, 
circumspect, foresighted, shrewd, deep, — the best politician 
ever in Washington, bar none until McKinley. 

Early Life, — Personal Appearance. — All the world 
knows that Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, 
in Hardin County, Kentucky ; that he was six feet four inches 
in height, weighed one hundred and seventy-five or eighty 
pounds, wore a seven and one-eighth hat (most men wear 
sevens, but several Presidents have worn seven and a half 
hats, one a seven and seven-eighths), and No. 11 or 12 shoes. 
(Washington had enormous hands and feet, larger than Lin- 
coln's; he weighed thirty or forty pounds more, wore No. 13 
boots, and usually had far better health and was much more 
athletic.) Lincoln was ugly of face, so ugly as to be pictu- 
resque. But he was neither ungainly nor awkward of body, 
nor uncouth in manner, nor as President rude and careless of 
speech. On the contrary, he carried himself strongly and 
gracefully, though he usually seemed weary and often sleepy ; 
he was polite, gracious, and sympathetic, and his language on 
dress parade was choice and considerate. If Lincoln had any 
"pose" whatsoever, it was the pose of carelessness, — to throw 
plotters off the track, — for he was in truth the most careful 
of men. It is unwise to seem too prudent. People never like 
"safe" men, especially the men who seem to be safeguarding 
themselves. Lincoln was a shepherd of the people, a safe 



434 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

gnarder of others, not of himself. He was the least selfish 
of men. 

His Ancestry. — Thousands and millions in times past 
have tried to fathom the secret of how Lincoln came to be 
what he was. No plummet has sounded that depth for him 
or for any other son of man. His father was Thomas Lincoln 
of Kentucky, — a thick, vigorous, bold, reckless hunting pioneer, 
— surpassingly strong, as brave as any of his neighbors, as 
industrious as the average of them, rather unsuccessful in get- 
ting property and provisions for his family. Perhaps, he had 
the dreadful malaria of those early days. Certainly, his son 
greatly suffered from malaria for many years, perhaps always 
more or less. From his father and his line, Abraham inherited 
his tough constitution. 

Death of His Mother. — The mother of Abraham Lincoln 
was Nancy Hanks, a poor girl but probably not illegitimate, 
as once was believed by many. She was a very gentle and 
a rather pretty and attractive woman. She died when her son 
was but nine years old; he always remembered her with a 
beautiful tenderness, perhaps inherited from herself. Soon, 
Tom Lincoln married again. The family drifted westward 
into Illinois. The stepmother was a widow with children, and 
was very kind to her husband's boy and girl. 

His Reading. — They were all poor, almost desperately poor, 
and ignorant. But for all his ignorance, Abraham was ambi- 
tious. He managed to get an arithmetic to study; and later a 
grammar. Next, he read Plutarch's "Lives," Parson Weems' 
"Life of Washington," some "Plays" of Shakespeare's, Bun- 
yan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and little else. But he learned 
these books. Meantime, he wore leather leggins and a linsey 
woolsey shirt, summer and winter. He survived hardship. 
As population came in, he began to rise. When full-grown, he 
found a chance to read Blackstone's "Commentaries upon the 
Common Law of England." Probably, he learned much of it, 
word for word. He fought the toughs of his neighborhood 
and in his own language "licked" them. He worked out among 
his neighbors. At last, he began to earn money, and after he 
came of age, got for himself his first suit of clothes. 

In Early Manhood, — Such was the Lincoln of 1830. 

In 1832 Lincoln went as captain with a company of neigh- 
bors to the Black Hawk War, but saw none of the fighting. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 435 

In the same year, he became a candidate for the State Legisla- 
ture but though he carried his own county by 205 votes to 3, 
was defeated. 

His Debts. — He became a country storekeeper, but failed 
next year, owing several hundred dollars. The neighborhood 
was now declining in population and deteriorating in morals. 
He continued to be so poor that fifteen years were required to 
pay off this apparently small debt. Most young men as poor 
as Lincoln, instead of trying to pay the debt, would have "lit 
out for parts farther west," to use their own vernacular, my 
own native lingo. He stayed and paid. Presidency? If he 
ever thought of it, the Presidency must have seemed to him as 
remote and inaccessible as the planet Jupiter. 

In the spring of 1833, when Andrew Jackson was President, 
Lincoln became postmaster at the village of New Salem and 
continued in the little office until 1836, when it was closed by 
the Government for want of patrons. Public business like 
private died on Lincoln's hands. 

Member State Legislature. — But in 1834 he had run 
again for the Illinois Legislature, and had been elected. The 
eleven candidates ran upon joint tickets. The four leading 
men received respectively 1376, either 1370 or 1390, — no one 
ever learned which, — 11 70 and 11 64. Lincoln was the third 
in this list, whereupon he borrowed $200 of a friend, bought 
a good suit of clothes, his second, and proceeded to Vandalia, 
then the Capital of the State. He was twenty-five years old. 
Part of this time, he studied surveying and managed to get 
some work to do. 

There was much sympathy felt by all who knew Lincoln 
because he was below even poverty, lived on the cheapest fare 
(which he bought at grocery stores) and slept in office-build- 
ings to save room-rent. 

Death of Ann Rutledge. — ^Lincoln took but little interest 
in legislation at Vandalia. There was a delicate girl of the 
home-neighborhood by name Ann Rutledge, whose affianced 
lover went to New York and either died or forgot her. She 
was but seventeen years old, and Lincoln wished to marry her. 
She fell into a decline and died of what was called brain- fever 
in August, 1835. For months, he had sat daily at her bed- 
side. Just what happened then to Abraham Lincoln is obscure. 
His friends and neighbors had no understanding of such a 



436 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

case ; they called him crazy. He had always been melancholy ; 
it is a disease to which the patient and persistent, the lonely and 
the poor are peculiarly liable. This melancholy was intensified 
to an extreme degree. He was taken care of by the friend to 
whom he owed the $200, — Speed, — and gradually grew better. 
Never again was his physical strength what it had been ; never 
again did he believe unreservedly in the goodness of God or 
of the universe or in humanity itself. He never shook off 
wholly the influence of Ann Rutledge, the memory of her 
pitiful troubles, and his own soul-absorbing, unrequited 
passion for the fair-haired, blue-eyed girl. He seemed to 
others and to himself under a fate, and became mystical. In 
1836, Lincoln had another love-affair, not wholly serious, with 
a Kentucky girl by name Mary Owen, who rejected him. 

Legislative Service. — Then came a third campaign for 
the Legislature, in which he was easily successful. Lincoln 
was a Clay man and anti-Jackson, strong for internal improve- 
ments, "unsound" on the money-question. He wished to be- 
come "the DeWitt Clinton of Illinois." In 1837, he attacked 
some extreme proslavery resolutions passed by the Democratic 
majority in the Legislature. Illinois was settled mostly by 
Southerners. Anti-slavery men were few. Lincoln boldly 
declared slavery both "injustice and bad policy." In 1838 he 
lost the Speakership by but one vote, a fair test of the relative 
strength of Whigs and Democrats. 

Though he knew but little law, he was admitted to the bar 
in 1836, and in April, 1837, began active practice at Spring- 
field, the new Capital of the State. In 1840 he was reelected 
to the Legislature, and was also a candidate on the Harrison 
Electoral ticket. He stumped the State for Harrison and the 
Whigs and frequently encountered Stephen A. Douglas who 
from lobbyist had turned stump-speaker. The Democrats won. 
The "Little Giant" was then twenty-seven years old, being 
Lincoln's junior by four years. 

The Strange Story of His Courtship and Marriage. — 
In 1836, Mary Todd, then twenty years old, came from Ken- 
tucky to visit a sister at Springfield. Lincoln thought that he 
was in love with her. Douglas also courted her — if she had 
married him, would she have made him President? 

Lincoln and Mary Todd agreed to marry on January i, 
1841. In the parlor of her sister's home, duly adorned, with 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 437 

the minister and the invited guests, the bride-to-be awaited the 
bridegroom, who came not. His friends spirited him away to 
Kentucky, for a visit of months. His neighbors said that he 
had gone crazy again. But he had not jilted Mary Todd: 
he simply thought that he was unfit to marry her. Yet on 
November 4, 1842, at thirty-three years of age, he did marry 
Miss Todd, nearly nine years his junior. She was almost as 
queer as himself; and smarter. She insisted that he had a 
great future. A match-making friend arranged a surprise 
meeting for them ; and his plan succeeded, though details were 
never published by them. Mary Todd meant to make Lincoln 
President. He regarded her as a clever woman. 

Whether it was a happy marriage or not, biographers and 
even historians dispute. Mrs. Lincoln had a shrewish temper 
and a caustic pen, which in newspaper letters before her 
marriage she had used against one of Lincoln's best friends. 
But she had much to endure from her husband, who at this 
period was not domestic in his tastes but preferred taverns 
and courts and legislative halls and offices in which to chat 
with men. It was part of his fate that he spent his days and 
evenings cultivating popularity. He neither smoked tobacco 
nor drank liquor, but he associated with those who did, many 
of whom did little more. The 'forties of the nineteenth cen- 
tury in Illinois were free and careless days. 

His Law Practice. — In 1841 Lincoln became junior law 
partner with Judge Stephen T. Logan ; and though this part- 
nership was dissolved in 1843, when he became senior partner 
in the firm of Lincoln & Hemdon, Logan always remained a 
steadfast friend. Lincoln never became a jurist, but he soon 
became a shrewd pleader and a case-winner. He was a notable 
cross-questioner, being patient, polite and adroit. He appeared 
in many interesting cases. In one in July, 1841, before the 
Illinois Supreme Court, he argued that a promissory note 
given in pajmient for a negro girl was invalid because slavery 
was forbidden by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and there- 
fore was legally without consideration of "value received," 
since no title could be given. The court so held. Slaves could 
not be sold in Illinois and after this case notes involving slaves 
were worthless there. The United States Circuit Court has 
held, — 191 1, — that the Constitution itself is subordinate to the 
Northwest Ordinance because later, and the forgotten Con- 



438 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

gress of the Confederation is slowly coming to its own. In 
truth, the "weaknesses" of the Confederation has been exag- 
gerated for political purposes. In the fifteen years from 1 774 
to 1789, the population of the United States grew, despite war 
and exiling of Loyalists, four per cent, per annum.^ 

A Railroad Case. — In another case, in 1857, between a 
steamboat owner and the Rock Island railroad, Lincoln argued 
that travel by bridge was as truly a common law right as travel 
by steamboat. The court agreed: This decision had a vital 
effect upon railroad development for which bridges are 
essential. 

In 1858, in the defence of an alleged murderer, Williar» 
Armstrong, son of a New Salem friend, Lincoln showed thai 
the main witness who said that at ten o'clock by the light of 
the moon he saw the defendent strike a blow must be lying, 
for by the almanac there was no moon that night at that hour. 

In 1842 Lincoln voluntarily retired from the State Legisla- 
ture, but sought unsuccessfully the Whig nomination to Con- 
gress. In this same year, he took up earnestly the Washing- 
tonian total abstinence movement. 

Member of Congress. — Four years later, he secured 
nomination and election to Congress. He was the only Whig 
sent by Illinois that session ; he went as an avowed antagonist 
of the Jackson- Van Buren-Polk machine. His opponent in 
the canvass was the famous Democratic preacher. Reverend 
Peter Cartwright, whose grandson "Peachy" Harrison he was 
to defend in murder trials in 1856 and in i860. 

On December 22, 1847, he introduced in Congress the "Spot 
Resolutions,"^ and on January 12, 1848, he made a speech in 
the House upon the conduct of the Mexican War, in which he 
asserted plainly that the war was "unnecessarily and uncon- 
stitutionally commenced by the President." In correspondence 
with his constituents at home, he took the ground that Polk 
acted like a King, not like a President. "Kings," he wrote, 
"had always been involving and impoverishing their people in 
wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the 
people was the object." 

Lincoln made in Congress a rather more important figure 
than was usual even then for a member in his first term. But 

^See p. 217, supra. *See p. 392, supra. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 439 

his course offended a majority of his constituency. Moreover, 
it was the Illinois custom to rotate offices. They believed in 
rotation on the theory that the purpose of an office is to help 
the offfceholder; it is the view both of primitive and of degen- 
erate peoples. One term was the order. In 1848 Lincoln was 
not even nominated for a second term. He went upon a 
stump-speaking tour in New England and met with success.^ 
Because he had opposed the Mexican War, he favored the out- 
raged war-hero Zachary Taylor for the Presidential nomina- 
tion. 

A Business Manx's Congressman. — The political principles 
of Abraham Lincoln included liberal appropriations for 
internal improvement at Federal Government cost. (This, of 
course, is National Socialism.) They included also liberal 
public land laws, plenty of paper money, liberal local banking, 
and a high protective tariff. His appeal was to the adventurous, 
speculative element among the business men. Despite the 
apotheosis due to the outcome of the Interstate War, to his 
murder, and to the genuine love felt for him by millions, it is 
difficult, even upon the recommendation of Abraham Lincoln, 
to support all these views. He was a Whig of the Whigs. But 
he was more than a Whig. At heart, he was antislavery, 
almost an abolitionist. He had introduced an explicit and 
detailed bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia, — a favorite measure of new members, — and he 
was constantly urging the reduction of slavery by the purchase 
of slaves and their "return" to Africa, though few of them 
had been born there, and at least half had white ancestors. 
This African colonization scheme was visionary, but many 
in the North, and some in the South, cherished the vision. 

Speaks Frequently. — His term in Congress familiarized 
Lincoln with Washington and brought him into National poli- 
tics. His New England trip gave him a broader reputation. 
In the next ten years, he was called several times also into 
Kansas and Ohio to make speeches. In 1848 he had declined 
an appointment as Territorial Governor of Oregon, and had 
sought the National Commissionership of Public Lands but 
failed to get it. His true field in politics was to be Illinois. 

The Contest with Douglas. — In 1854 being now forty- 
five years of age, upon the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill, Lincoln came to the front, denouncing the bill as a breach 

^See p. 367, supra. 



440 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

of public faith. Stephen A. Douglas had entered the United 
States Senate at the same session as Lincoln entered the 
House. They were now to be pitted against one another as 
the recognized leaders of opposing parties. Until 1854, though 
the younger man, Douglas had been the winner. Upon Octo- 
ber 4, 1854, in Springfield, Lincoln made a speech four hours 
long replying to one by Douglas delivered the day before. 
In this year, he had been elected to the State Legislature but 
resigned in order to be a candidate for United States Senator 
against James Shields, with whom at one time he had fought 
a silly, bloodless duel with broadswords over some newspaper 
letters written by two girls. He married one of the girls; his 
friend Lyman Trumbull married the other. Lincoln lost the 
Senatorship but defeated Shields; and Trumbull carried off 
the political prize. 

RouGHHousE Politics in Illinois. — The tone and trend 
of the politics of Illinois had a certain boyish, roughhouse 
atmosphere, like that of most State legislatures on adjourn- 
ment at the end of the legislative open season when inkwells 
hurtle through the air and all valuable loose public property 
is appropriated by the members. Manhood suffrage is pro- 
ductive of mere manhood legislation, and not much more; 
many men are big boys, and nothing more. Yet in Illinois 
politics was involved the life of the American nation, the 
union itself of the American people. 

A Veritable Cave of Adullam. — In 1856 all the odds and 
ends of our people, all the discontented, and many practical 
politicians came together formally to organize the Republican 
party in Illinois in opposition to Popular Sovereignty.^ On 
May 29, 1856, Abraham Lincoln made an impressive address 
before the State Republican Convention. The National Con- 
vention of the party cast no votes for him as Vice-Presi- 
dential candidate with John C. Fremont.^ In the fall elec- 
tions, the Democrats carried the State for Buchanan and 
Breckenridge, but the Republicans elected the Governor and 
State officers. In June, 1858, the Republican State Conven- 
tion named Lincoln as their candidate to succeed Douglas, 
whose second term as United States Senator was soon to 
expire. 

^See pp. Ill, 410, 421, suprcL *See p. 417, supra. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 441 

His Greatest Speech. — Before this convention, against 
the advice of all his friends, Lincoln made the remarkable 
speech that ultimately elected him President. In it, he said, 
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this 
Government cannot endure permanently half -slave and half- 
free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not 
expect the house to fall — ^but I do expect it will cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing or all the other," For 
a man actively in politics, it was a tremendous deliverance. His 
assertion that the advocates of slavery "will push it forward 
till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as 
new — North as well as South" was the death knell of Northern 
temporizers. He charged that Presidents Pierce and Buch- 
anan, Chief Justice Taney, and Senator Douglas had con- 
spired knowingly and in so many words to secure the Dred 
Scott decision. This, as we now know, was true.'^ No other 
public man had yet spoken so plainly, — not even Seward. His 
speech sounded like the reform abolitionism of William Lloyd 
Garrison and Wendell Phillips, who nevertheless would not 
receive him into their company of radical reformers, — which 
was fortunate for Lincoln. Had they welcomed him as a 
recruit, had they not denounced him as playing politics, he 
would have failed to gain the support of millions whose votes 
he needed. These millions looked upon him as a safe 
politician, careful in his utterances, who would not go further 
than he must, but who was himself perfectly honest, candid 
and sincere. 

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. — The memorable debates 
with Douglas took place in the fall of 1858. They met at 
seven points in the State, at Ottawa, at Freeport, at Jonesboro, 
at Charleston, at Galesburg, at Quincy and at Alton : the 
first upon August 21, the last upon October 15. At other 
points, on this circuit, each made many other speeches, though 
no others with reference to this joint debate. Lincoln had 
Douglas defeated for the Presidency when the second session 
was over, for in order to win the Senatorship, "The Little 
Giant" was forced to say that, regardless of Constitution and 
Federal law, "slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere 
unless it is supported by local police regulation." This "Free- 
port heresy" cost Douglas the Presidency because it split the 
Democratic party into two parts. Lincoln set out deliberately 

*See p. 418, supra. 



442 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

to accomplish this very thing, as he carefully recounted to his 
friends beforehand. 

Douglas Wins Because of a Gerrymander. — At the 
election, the votes stood for Douglas State Senators and Rep- 
resentatives, 122,000; for Lincoln Senators and Representa- 
tives, 126,000; for out and out Buchanan proslavery Senators 
and Representatives, 5000. But the State was gerrymandered 
in the Democratic interest, and the members of the Legislature 
stood : 

Senate, Democrats 14, Republicans, 11. 

House, Democrats, 40, Republicans 35. 

Total for Douglas 54, for Lincoln 46. 

On the 27th of February, i860, at Cooper Union, New 
York, for $175 raised by New York politicians, publicists and 
abolitionists, mostly friends of Henry Ward Beecher, Lincoln 
read a speech (quite like one that he had previously delivered 
at Elwood, Kansas) in which he summarized the entire politi- 
cal history of slavery. He followed this address with a tour 
in New England, speaking in nearly a dozen cities. 

The Finances of Lincoln. — ^It is highly interesting to 
know the financial aspects of this canvass to Lincoln himself. 
Though he represented the Republican party in Illinois, in the 
Douglas debates, he himself had to pay all his expenses, and 
he was so poor that he borrowed the $250 necessary to see him 
through. The Illinois Central railroad furnished Douglas, 
however, with a special train free, and the Democrats paid him 
a handsome fee for his services. Capital was for Douglas. 
Lincoln rode in an ordinary car, paying his own fare. He had 
the poorer accommodations at the hotels also. Moreover, the 
churches and the ministers were nearly all hostile to him. And 
yet poor though he was, the newspapers often attacked him as 
an "aristocrat" because of his wife's social connections. His 
law practice was neglected while he went about the people's 
business. Abraham Lincoln was in truth under a perpetual 
strain, a ceaseless harassing from childhood until death. Ideas 
mastered him. In a way, he was an American political 
Socrates, whose forum was not one city like Athens but the. 
State of Illinois. In this, the oratorical period of his life, he 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 443 

developed his singular natural quality of long, concentrated, 
exhaustive reflection upon a few phases of the single matter 
of slavery. Some Americans accused him of always talking 
the same way in the same words about the same thing, — as 
the Athenians had accused Socrates. He read but little; he 
thought and talked and wrote tirelessly upon slavery. He 
was the first and only man whom the American people ever 
elected President because he was a thinker and public speaker. 
Yet he was not an orator, for his voice was poor. 

Republican Nominee for President. — In May, i860, the 
Republican State Convention declared for Lincoln for the party 
candidate for President. For the nomination, there were 
four leading competitors, — W. H. Seward of New York, 
former Governor and then United States Senator; Simon 
Cameron of Pennsylvania, a party leader and life-long office- 
holder; Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, more of a statesman 
than Cameron, more of a politician than Seward; and 
Lincoln. All the odds were on Seward ; but Chase was work- 
ing hard for the nomination. Cameron held the balance of 
power ; he would probably, so it seemed, turn his strength for 
Seward or Chase and thereby decide the issue. If the conven- 
tion had met in New York or Philadelphia, Seward would 
probably have been chosen; if in Cincinnati, then Chase. 

The West Knows the Game. — But the convention was to 
be held at Chicago; and the Illinois Republicans meant to get 
the nomination for their own State. They employed rooters 
and howlers, they filled the street with shouting paraders, not 
hesitating to hire even Democrats. The Seward men from 
New York resorted to the same tactics; but at a critical 
moment, thousands of Lincoln men filed into the convention 
hall, packing it and keeping out the Seward street paraders 
except the delegates with reserved seats. The Seward shout- 
ing was mainly outside, the Lincoln was both inside and out- 
side.^ 

At the start, Seward lost. The first ballot stood : 

Seward i73/^ Chase 49 McLean 12 

Lincoln 102 Bates 48 Collamer 10 

Cameron 503^ Dayton 14 Scattering 6 

Then a bargain was made. Judge David Davis, the Lincoln 
*See p. 425, supra. 



444 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

manager, agreed to give Cameron a Cabinet Secretaryship for 
his votes. The third ballot stood : 

Seward i8o Chase 24^ McLean 5 

Lincoln 23 ij^ Bates 22 Scattering 2 

Total 465. Necessary for a choice 233. 

Ohio then transferred four votes to Lincoln, and his vote 
increased to 354, whereupon William M. Evarts, manager for 
Seward, rose and moved to make the nomination unanimous. 

Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated for Vice Presi- 
dent, having upon the second ballot all but 98 votes. Cannon 
boomed, barrooms were filled, and a great moral crusade was 
going forward, while the new leader, to use his own words, 
having heard by telegraph at Springfield the momentous news, 
left his office to "see a little woman at home who will be inter- 
ested to hear it," 

Diatribe by Wendell Phillips. — ^Wendell Phillips, there- 
upon, published an article entitled "Abraham Lincoln, the 
Slavehound of Illinois." Most of his life, however, the clergy- 
men and other respectables never spoke to Lincoln, and he 
bore up cheerfully against this one more blow. But most of 
the Abolitionists supported him. To the surprise of nearly all 
politicians, Lincoln had 180 votes in the Electoral College to 
133 for his three competitors together, and a popular plurality 
of 491,500 over Douglas. 

Elected President. — The figures of the popular vote were 
as follows, viz. : 



j Total for these 

j three 2,813,500. 

Total votes cast 4,680,000 

In the Electoral College, the vote was Lincoln 180, Brecken- 
ridge ^2, Bell 39, Douglas 12. 

In North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, 
Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee, there had not 
been one vote cast for Abraham Lincoln. In Virginia, he had 
but 2000 votes. South Carolina cast no popular vote. 



For Lincoln 


1,866,500 


For Douglas 


1,375,000 


For Breckenridge 


848,000 


For Bell 


590,500 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 445 

Our Historic Sectionalism. — The situation was ominous. 
Almost continuously, our land has been sectional in its politics. 
The South was Republican-Democratic, the North Federalist; 
the South was Democi;atic, the North Whig; the South has 
been Democratic, the North Republican. But never before was 
an elected President short of a majority by 1,000,000 votes. 
Lincoln had just one-third of the voting citizens with him.^ 

The sectionalism of the land is shown also in the Northern 
vote. Lincoln carried most of its States by at least two-thirds 
of the total votes, winning heavily over all the other candidates. 
Even New York State was not close; Lincoln had 362,646 
votes against Douglas, fusion candidate, who had 312,510. In 
Illinois he had 12,000 over Douglas, and 5000 over all, in a total 
vote of 340,000. He barely won in California and in Oregon, 
in each State having only a few hundred plurality. Kentucky, 
his native State, gave him but 1366 in 146,000 votes. 

The Fight was Against Douglas. — In truth, the people 
were rejecting Douglas, not electing the untried and relatively 
unknown Lincoln. But they were rejecting Douglas because 
Lincoln had forced him into the open. Douglas carried only 
New Jersey, where his fusion ticket had but 4500 majority, — 
and Missouri, — where he defeated Bell, the next candidate by 
but 400 votes. Texas cast no vote for Douglas, and Florida 
but 367. Of his total vote, he had one-half in four States, — • 
New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, yet lost them all. The 
Southern secessionists distrusted Douglas even more than 
Lincoln. 

In any other view, the coming of Abraham Lincoln to the 
Presidency is inexplicable. We Americans do not rush to 
endorse the "dark horse" candidate of any party; but we some- 
times flee from old stagers. 

Whether Seward would have polled more or less votes than 
Lincoln, we shall never know. Whether he could have defeated 
Douglas, we shall never know. Nor shall we ever know what 
candidate would have made the best President. We cannot 
even know that a war would have followed if some other man 
had been elected. 

The Lincoln Myth. — A fearful time followed. For the 
glory of the man who stood at the top for the victorious party, 
all the emotions have been concentrated; and he has been 

*See p. 425, supra. 



446 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

idealized beyond identification with the real man, though not 
yet beyond recognition, as is the case of George Washington, 
In time, the Lincoln myth is likely to be as imposing and as 
impossible as the Washington myth. This deification is 
natural. We love gods, and therefore make them. Yet, for- 
ever, there is but one God, whom in the flesh no man realizes 
or even resembles. 

The Interregnum Invited Secession. — Immediately 
after the election of Lincoln, State upon State seceded. 
Steadily, the situation during the interregnum grew worse and 
worse. 

We may not wisely say that it is useless to discuss whether 
secession was avoidable. Under similar conditions, it may 
occur again. The long interregnum invited secession. The 
weakness of Buchanan invited it. The election of a man whom 
millions did not know invited it. The interregnum was a 
condition, not a cause. Buchanan also was a condition, not a 
cause. And Lincoln likewise. But without the conditions, the 
moving cause might not have operated successfully.^ That 
cause was the desire of the Southern slavery-extension and 
slave-protection leaders to go it alone, to get free from North- 
ern hypocrisy and from Northern hostility, to settle for them- 
selves the fate of their own domestic institutions. 

In the dark month of February, 1861, under a strange pre- 
vision of doom, Abraham Lincoln, President-elect of a 
divided United States, made ready to leave Illinois. That 
winter, he had visited his aged stepmother, whom he loved; 
and she had predicted that he would be killed, as did many 
others. Thousands of office-seekers, anticipating a political 
revolution, had visited him at his home. He had made his 
plans for his Cabinet, and had written his inaugural. He was 
more than ill at ease ; he was deeply dejected, as so often before. 
He knew and said that he should have come into control 
at once after election.^ He was never afflicted with the idea 
that the American Constitution is perfect. 

Predicts His Own Death by Violence. — On February 
II, 1 86 1, Lincoln set out from Springfield for Washington, 
intending to stop at various points and to talk matters over 
with the leaders and with the common people. At the Spring- 

^See pp. 82, 83, supra. 'See pp. 128, 163, 169, 427, supra. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 447 

field railroad station, he predicted that the troubles ahead 
would cost him his own life. Reaching Baltimore three weeks 
later, after several speeches en route,^ he hurried through 
the city almost unknown, varying his announced itinerary 
to avoid a plan of assassination, of which he had been fore- 
warned. 

A Great Cabinet. — Immediately upon his inauguration, he 
announced his all-star Cabinet : 

Secretary of State, — W. H. Seward of New York. 

Secretary of Treasury, — S. P. Chase of Ohio. 

Secretary of War, — Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania. 

Secretary of Navy, — Gideon Welles of Connecticut. 

Secretary of Interior, — C. B. Smith of Indiana. 

Attorney-General, — Edward Bates of Missouri. 

Postmaster-General, — Montgomery Blair of Maryland. 

President Lincoln had tried to get several Southern men 
but had failed. These secretaries were not his personal 
friends, but they were strong men with political followings. 
There had been much wire-pulling about these places. Lin- 
coln had to remember that Cabinet Secretaries are appointed 
"by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." Nor 
could he draft men into the service. Some good men declined ; 
high public office with low salary is not acceptable to all even 
in the piping times of peace. 

A Good Helmsman for the Ship of State. — From this 
point, the biography of Abraham Lincoln is part of the history 
of the country at its most important, difficult epoch, the tragic 
years of the Interstate War. Space utterly fails to recount 
the story. Every day, many, many times, the hand of Lincoln 
was upon the helm of the Ship of State, rounding danger 
points, taking up flaws in the wind, avoiding eddies and mael- 
stroms, riding out the whirlwind and the hurricane. Every day 
he grew wiser. From the first day, he was never the master 
but only the grieving, patient, foresighted pilot of American 
destiny. He made many mistakes ; but he never persisted in 
the path of the same kind of mistake. 

Call for Volunteers. — The points that may be noted in 
ia brief review of his career as President are simply illustra- 
tive. Though the North was not wholly and vigorously loyal, 
yet Lincoln never made the mistake of trying in any way to 
compromise with the South. He paid no attention to the com- 

^See pp. 405, 429, supra. 



448 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

missioners sent to treat for peace with the "new nation." He 
even let them stay in the Capital and forward news to the 
secessionists. Lincoln made a mistake in not sending prompt 
enough relief to Fort Sumter, which fell April 15. Then he 
issued his bugle call for 75,000 volunteers. This he followed 
promptly with a call for three-year enlistments. This was a 
mistake : the enlistments should have been, as he came to see, 
"for the war." He summoned Congress, of course, in special 
session, and was shrewd enough immediately to accept the poli- 
tical services there of Thaddeus Stevens, parliamentary master 
of the House, 

The Border States. — The President set himself to win the 
Border States. This was, perhaps, the greatest of his early 
achievements. The problem was to win Maryland, Kentucky, 
Missouri, and if possible, Virginia, North Carolina and Ten- 
nessee at the very start. Even Delaware, however, at first 
was not sure. In pursuit of this design, he had appointed 
Blair and Bates to his Cabinet. Delaware was quickly con- 
trolled, as usual in her history, by men and influences from 
Philadelphia. 

The struggle in Maryland was longer. It was indeed never 
wholly won, for thousands of Marylanders enlisted in the 
Confederate Army. Most Marylanders were Southern sym- 
pathizers, but of these sympathizers most were afraid of the 
North. 

The Baltimore Riot. — The Baltimore riot, when four 
soldiers of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment and twelve citi- 
zens also were killed, on April 1 7, at first tended to throw the 
State into the Confederacy; but the actual relief of the Capital 
by the three Massachusetts volunteer regiments sent by their 
War-Governor Andrews cut Baltimore off from its Southern 
trade, and the economic necessity of dependence upon the 
North starved the city into Unionism. The telegraph wires 
and the railroad bridges between Baltimore and Washington 
had been pulled down in order to terrorize the National Gov- 
ernment. But in this world things often cut both ways. — 
Isolating Washington from the loyal North likewise isolated 
Baltimore from the South. 

Kentucky was even harder to hold, but Lincoln was himself 
a Kentuckian, and his own moves and the influence of Ohio, 
which was almost as intensely loyal as Massachusetts, saved 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



449 



the State to "neutrality," the absurd term used to cover the 
attempt to be "loyal to both sides." 

Far more strenuous was the fight for Missouri. The story 
is a volume itself. The guerrilla warfare lasted for years ; and 
yet the State government was held for the Union. 

Virginia. — Lincoln was trying hard to hold Virginia. He 
sought to hold Robert E. Lee, Colonel of the United States 
Army ; but Lee turned secessionist. Whether, as he was wont 
to say, he went out because Virginia did, or Virginia went out 
because he did, is a moot question. The Union finally lost 
Virginia ; and Virginia soon lost, by her own secession theory, 
one-third of her area, all the beautiful and rich western 




{~~1 10Fra*6(atM 

^ 4 Union Stave State* 



1 1 Seceded Stave State* 
"Ttie Conlederacy" 



counties. Then Richmond, scarcely a hundred miles due 
south, was made the Confederate Capital. "On to Richmond !" 
was the Federal cry; "On to Washington!" the Confederate 
cry. 

The Two Capitals. — For the purposes of the war, once 
that Maryland was saved and the Confederacy did not quickly 
win the Capital of the United States, — which would have 
meant recognition of the new nation abroad instanter, — it 
proved to be advantageous that the seat of the National Gov- 
ernment was so far South. Though in the summer wounded 
Union soldiers died like flies from typhoid and other fevers in 
the Washington hospitals, still the District of Columbia was 



450 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

thrust like a promontory out into the secession ocean, and felt 
the shock of the storms of war. It was a dramatic, a spectacu- 
lar, location. Midway between South and North, Washington 
appealed to the Northern imagination. Hundreds of thou- 
sands of soldiers enlisted to save the Capital. 

Likewise, the choice of Richmond for the Capital of the 
Confederacy, though a military folly, was a political master- 
stroke. Virginia was "the mother of Presidents." The South- 
erners enlisted to save the land of Washington and of Jeffer- 
son, of Marshall, and of Patrick Henry from invasion. 

The Southern Situation. — Lincoln was foiled also in 
trying to save North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee. But 
from every one of these States of the Middle South, thousands 
of soldiers enlisted in the Union armies. The Appalachian 
country, "the land of the sky," never was proslavery or seces- 
sionist. 

In a total population of 12,300,000, the South including the 
Border States had 350,000 slaveholders and a few thousand 
less than 4,000,000 slaves. The total population of the United 
States in 1861 was about 32,000,000. The average slavehold- 
ing family had five members. This means that about one 
family in three possessed slaves, and that this slaveholding 
family had eleven slaves, or two per member. It means also 
that two families in three had no slaves. These non-slavehold- 
ing families were mostly in the cities and in the mountains 
Because of trade with the plantations, the cities were proslavery 
The plantation South was proslavery. But the mountain South 
and the poor white trash of the country and to a certain extent 
of the cities and villages were often Unionist. ^ 

The Northern Situation. — Similarly, the North was 
divided.' The laboring people and the liberally educated 
farmers, the mechanics, the clerks and the factory operatives 
were nearly all Unionist; but the commercial classes of the 
larger cities, the bankers, the lawyers, journalists, preachers, 
and literary persons were generally either proslavery or peace- 
at-any-price advocates. Of course, millions in the North as in 
the South really had no opinions, wanting ability or experience 
or interest to form opinions. Human society necessarily breeds 
and rears a majority of persons to obey orders, to catch hints, 
and to look out how to keep alive. Abraham Lincoln was the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 451 

one man North or South who best knew and understood these 
facts and how to apply the knowledge and understanding to 
the situation. 

Recalls the Methods of Washington, Jackson, and 
Polk. — On the 19th of April, Lincoln instituted a blockade of 
the Southern ports. He had been anti-Jackson and anti-Polk; 
but he proceeded upon their methods of violence, thoroughness, 
and perseverance. On July 4, Congress came together in 
special session. It was some months, however, until all the 
secessionists withdrew; and throughout the War, many Cop- 
perheads or secessionist sympathizers were in Congress. Per- 
haps, it was better so. Perhaps, the strong opposition to the 
War among the remaining members of Congress made its 
advocates both more eager and more steadfast. 

Military Emancipation. — In August, the question of mili- 
tary emancipation of slaves arose. Congress passed a law 
freeing slaves actually employed in hostile service in the armies 
of the Confederacy. John C. Fremont,^ serving as general in 
Missouri, undertook to set free all the slaves of the soldiers 
of the Confederacy there; but the President and Congress 
modified his order. Martial law did not quite mean that any 
officer in command could do as he pleased, — not even though 
he was the first candidate of the Republican party for the 
Presidency, and the son-in-law of a powerful Senator, who, 
however, had voted for his opponent.^ 

,The Interesting "War-Powers." — The Constitution now 
came under a prodigious strain. There arose situation after 
situation that the fathers had not foreseen. To save the Con- 
stitution, they must stretch it ! Necessity knows no law. The 
President was commander-in-chief of the army and navy. 
"War-powers," of which almost nothing is said in the docu- 
ment, began to be assumed ; which assumption gave rise to an 
immense amount of controversy. The President indeed saved 
Maryland to the Union by ordering General Scott, in case the 
Legislature seemed about to vote to go out, to counteract the 
movement by the bombardment of their cities, and in extreme 
necessity, by the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. 

Conflict With the Supreme Court. — On May 25, 1861, 
one John Merryman, recruiting in Maryland for the Con- 

*See pp. 410, 421, supra. 'See p. 268, supra. 



452 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

federate service, was seized, — and Justice Taney granted to 
him a writ of habeas corpus. General Cadwalader of the Union 
service said that he held Merryman for treason, whereupon 
the Justice issued upon the General an attachment for contempt 
of court. Justice Taney then published a proclamation, thereby 
assuming supremacy in the National Government. But Presi- 
dent Lincoln controlled the army, and Congress, meeting in 
July and reflecting public opinion, took his view. Similarly, 
when Chief Justice Marshall and President Jefferson collided,^ 
the President won ; and when Marshall and Jackson^ collided, 
the President won. In 1861, as between the sage of the Dred 
Scott decision and the thinker of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, 
a large majority of the citizens backed the debater against the 
legalist. 

Habeas Corpus. — Fortunately, by July, Lincoln had estab- 
lished certain precedents from which it was inexpedient to 
deviate. Moreover, staying at home, the members of Congress 
had lived in the tide of public opinion, which was for a vigorous 
war and an early peace. Writs of habeas corpus would have 
allowed the Confederates to sap and mine the border States, — 
for men, for war-supplies, for money through sale of bonds, 
and for the invaluable support of public opinion. They had 
invited war, and they had made war; and it is an absurd 
notion that the writ of habeas corpus, in respect to the war- 
issues, runs in time of war. They who take the sword must 
live or die by the sword. The South had appealed from the 
ballot to the bullet; and though it was shrewd enough to try 
for every weak spot in the Union cause, including soft spots in 
the Union head, it was hypocritical to plead in defence of 
habeas corpus a violated and a rejected Constitution. Of 
course, all things are justifiable in time of war, including hypoc- 
risy, which indeed is one of its staples of exchange. 

The Lost Constitution. — War itself violated the Consti- 
tution, which makes no provision for Interstate war; and 
secession rejected it. The South had refused to let the situa- 
tion be adjudicated by peace and time. 

In Congress, there were some strong men, not many. Among 
them was Lincoln's friend. Judge Lyman Trumbull, now Sen- 
ator. 

^See pp. 395, 398, supra. 'See p. 335, supra. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 453 

This session of Congress voted 500,000 men and $500,- 
000,000 for the war; and adjourned on August 6. 

McClellan. — On the 19th of July occurred the first battle 
of Bull Run, — a panic and a rout for the Union troops. Then 
followed the long, long trial of General George B. McClellan, 
a graduated West Point engineer, who took command in the 
East at thirty-four years of age, having seen the Crimean War, 
and offering high promise of efficiency. On October 31, old 
Winfield Scott retired, and McClellan became head of all the 
Union armies. Through the winter, nothing was done. Mc- 
Clellan had the curse of that region, the always epidemic 
typhoid fever. Lincoln should have promptly removed him, 
for patients do not recover their mental strength at once after 
typhoid fever, which is a brain as well as a bowel disease. 

Stanton. — In the middle of January, 1862, Simon Cameron 
resigned to become Minister to Russia, and Edwin M. Stanton 
took his place in the Cabinet as Secretary of War. This was a 
change for the better in that Stanton had certain qualities that 
Lincoln lacked, — he was methodical, prompt, loved detail, was 
decided to the point of conceit, and his manner was repellent. 
It is sometimes necessary for a man hard pressed for time, 
naturally sympathetic, reflective, open-minded to have his next 
subordinate of the opposite temperament and disposition. 

It is highly significant not only that Stanton had been habit- 
ually insolent to Lincoln when they had met in law-practice 
but that also he had reviled him as President. But Lincoln 
needed him now and asked him to join the Cabinet. Stanton 
accepted, though he kept on criticising his chief. It was a 
strange situation that demonstrates the greatness of Abraham 
Lincoln and conveys curious evidences as to the character of 
Stanton himself. They had in common three qualities, — 
patriotism, zeal for public business, and financial honesty. 

As War-President. — The Union cause had the larger re- 
sources, more men, more equipment, more money; the South 
had the interior lines. The problem was whether Lincoln could 
get enough more soldiers, including good generals, to defeat 
the South with its defensive advantages. As a War-President, 
Madison had proven a failure, Polk a success. They were the 
only Presidents who had serious wars to wage. 

A War-President of a republic has a hard situation on his 
hands. Both the politicians in Congress and out of it and the 



454 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

general public must be gotten along with; and the war must 
be managed. Lincoln issued his General War Order No. i 
on January 27, 1862, directing all his army and naval forces 
to move "against the insurgent forces." Hitherto, he had 
made suggestions and given advice. He now took command. 
His order was a reveille. In the West, Admiral Foote and 
General Grant moved forward at once ; in the East, McClellan, 
still mentally feeble, went on drilling and preparing. In March 
Lincoln split the Army of the Republic into several independent 
commands ; it was a bad mistake, for neither he nor Congress 
was competent to assume military direction. Lincoln went 
even further, and upon the strenuous advice of the Committee 
on the Conduct of the War, split the Army of the Potomac 
itself into four army corps; the Committee, being wiser than 
Lincoln, was anti-McClellan. The four generals who were 
placed in charge were not even nominated by McClellan. This 
was another mistake. It is the essence of militarism that the 
chief shall control his subordinates. Militarism is not demo- 
cratic. 

The Victories of Grant. — Fortunately, the Washington 
politicians paid but little attention to affairs in the West, and 
the Union soldiers out there prospered. The same prosperity 
rested upon the naval affairs, which likewise the politicians 
neglected. Soon, the wedge of successful invasion had been 
driven into the West, and the Eastern seacoast was a prison- 
wall for the Confederacy. But with a small army and guerrilla 
bands, the Confederates harried the mountaineers of the Appa- 
lachians and made the South really solid below the Tennessee 
line. On February 6th, Foote and Grant took Fort Henry and 
on the 1 2th Fort Donelson. The spoils were two forts, two 
important Confederate generals, — Buckner and Johnston, — 
nearly 15,000 prisoners, 20,000 stand of arms, 48 pieces of 
artillery, 17 heavy guns, and 3000 horses. It was the first 
great victory of the War, and cheered Lincoln and Congress. 

Domestic Sorrow. — But on the 20th little Willie, son of 
the President, died. The oldest boy was away at Harvard 
College. Tad only was left at home. This affliction brought 
the parents closer together than before. Tad was not a strong 
child.^ He spent much of his time playing with a pair of goats 
in the White House grounds. 

Monitor and Merrimac. — On March 9, 1862, occurred 

*See pp. 62, 205, supra. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 455 

the great fight between the Merrimac and the Monitor in 
Hampton Roads, which saved New York harbor from such 
destruction as would have meant speedy recognition of the 
Confederacy in Europe. For that actual defeat, though not 
destruction, of the Confederate ram, Lincoln was responsible 
not less than the famous inventor, Ericsson, who had already 
made the scow-propeller. Lincoln had been a flatboatman ; he 
had even made an invention for lifting flatboats over shoals, — 
the model may be seen in the Patent Office. Secretaries, Sena- 
tors and Congressmen made fun of the proposed turret iron- 
clad ; but Lincoln told Ericsson to go ahead. With this encour- 
agement, the ingenious Swede got help from a Connecticut 
capitalist and Congressman; and Lincoln himself accepted the 
strange craft for the navy. His experience, insight and per- 
sistence in the face of ridicule saved the seas to the Union. 
Once let Abraham Lincoln make up his mind, and he went 
forward with the certainty that the earth swings through 
space. 

Southern Battles. — On April 2'j, Captain Farragut flew 
the Stars and Stripes over the recovered United States Mint 
at New Orleans. May i, General Benjamin F. Butler put the 
city under martial law ; and the North soon had cotton. In- 
cidentally, a brother of Butler made an immense fortune out of 
the cotton ; and, thereafter, the General was a very rich man. 

Early in March, General Halleck obtained orders from Mc- 
Clellan, relieving Grant of his command. But on March 17, 
the victor at Donelson was restored; and McClellan was re- 
duced in his field of control. On April 6, the terrific fighting 
began near Shiloh, the severest battle In the West ; and on the 
night of the 7th, the Confederates, having lost General Albert 
Sidne}^ Johnston, were in full retreat. 

Early in July, Halleck, who hated Grant, became general- 
in-chief of all the armies. Halleck was a no better general, 
however, than McClellan ; and was much like him in all respects 
save two, — McClellan was a politician, Halleck not ; and Mc- 
Clellan was wealthy, Halleck poor. 

"One War at a Time!" — On November 8, 1861, Captain 
Wilkes, of the U. S. steam sloop-of-war San Jacinto, in the 
Bahama Channel, fired a shot across the bow of her majesty 
Queen Victoria's mail steamship "Trent," brought her to, and 
with a force of marines took off two passengers. Mason and 



456 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Slidell, envoys of the Confederacy to England and France, who 
had run the blockade at Charleston, South Carolina, and had 
escaped to Havana, whence the Trent was taking them to 
Europe. Wilkes put into Boston Harbor, and confined the 
"missionaries," — their incognito, — in Fort Warren. Welles 
and Stanton immediately praised Wilkes ; and Congress, meet- 
ing in December, hurried through a vote of thanks. But Eng- 
land was furious. From the first, Lincoln and Seward saw 
that England was right. We had fought the War of 1812 over 
this kind of thing. Queen Victoria fortunately kept a cool 
head. Out came Lincoln with the final necessary words of 
genius, "One war at a time !" On January i, 1862, the envoys 
were turned over to the English gunboat "Rinaldo" at 
Provincetown on Cape Cod. For weeks, even months, the 
public in America raged against the President; but gradually 
the anger of the public wore out. 

The Negro Slaves. — Some slaves worked in the Confed- 
erate camps. Others felt that the Federalist army line was the 
Jordan river bank of freedom. General B. F. Butler called 
fugitives "contraband of war," a witty phrase that helped 
Lincoln. Hooker allowed slaveowners to enter his camp and 
to take their runaways. Halleck denied entrance to all colored 
persons. McClellan promised slaveowners help in preventing 
slave-fnsurrections. 

But there was even greater chaos, if such thing may be, in 
the legislation proposed. Lincoln did his best not to offend the 
Border States, but the drift of events was too strong for him. 
Slavery was being slowly driven, step by step, to the wall by 
the now antislavery Congress. The votes in Congress usually 
stood 2 or 3 to I in favor of the vigorous measures of the 
Northern radicals. 

That is a false view which represents the emancipation of 
the slaves as the work solely or mainly of the President. It 
was a principle of his political conduct not to go much faster 
or further than public opinion went. 

Lincoln was Weak in Dealing with McClellan. — 
Lincoln and McClellan differed both upon their philosophies of 
life and upon the actual plans of campaign. Lincoln was at 
heart loyal to his subordinate, but McClellan, who was weak- 
minded from illness, was not sincere and loyal to his superior. 
Lincoln thought that he must, at all hazard, hold Washington. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 457 

McClellan thought that if he could take Richmond, the Capital 
of the Confederacy, it would not be so very serious to lose 
Washington temporarily because of a raid of Stonewall Jack- 
son, He did not see (or care to measure, if he did see) the 
fact that Washington was the historic Capital, recognized 
internationally. 

In consequence. General McClellan planned the Peninsular 
Campaign from a base upon the James river. He would move 
"on to Richmond" eastward from Chesapeake Bay instead of 
southward from Washington. To that end, by a subterfuge 
of figuring army divisions that Lincoln was too busy wholly 
to understand, he removed nearly all the troops from Wash- 
ington. Whereupon, the President suddenly kept back some 
40,000 troops under McDowell that he had promised to Mc- 
Clellan upon belief in what proved to be false statements of 
the commander. Even so, McClellan had 100,000 fine soldiers. 
He moved forward, then retreated. There were seven days 
of terrible fighting in bad spring weather. Malvern Hill was 
a costly Union victory. But the soldiers had to be brought 
back from the James river, for the campaign had failed. 

The Meddling of the Politicians. — On the other hand, 
Lincoln himself lost his head and sent McDowell on a wild- 
goose chase after Stonewall Jackson down the Shenandoah 
valley. Had the Confederates been a little bolder and a little 
shrewder, they might have sacked Washington. Then Mc- 
Clellan was reduced from his command. His book called "Mc- 
Clellan's Own Story" is almost intolerably unpleasant reading, 
for two reasons. Of these, the first is that the General wrote it 
in bitterness of soul with many egotistic declarations about 
himself and with many denunciations of and innuendoes against 
others, including President Lincoln. The other reason is far 
more serious. The book proves that there was too much med- 
dling with the army and with military affairs, too much vacil- 
lation, too much covert mistrust within apparent confidence. 
A republic as a political mechanism has no business with war- 
fare anyway. We are left in doubt as to whether or not these 
unnecessary troubles caused the failure of McClellan as a field 
commander. That he was a brilliant success as the maker 
of the Army of the Potomac and indeed of many regiments 
sent into the West and South from his original command is 
indisputable. His soldiers Idolized him. But for McClellan, 



458 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Meade could never have withstood Lee at Gettysburg. Abra- 
ham Lincoln himself is not without fault in his early handling 
of McClellan. He should have dropped him and taken another 
man long ago. But he lacked decision. 

McClellan Restored. — They tried other commanders in 
the East. But, one after another, these commanders failed, — 
Pope, Rosecrans, Burnside, Hooker, Halleck. Then McClellan 
was restored. Not long afterward, Lee, having won the tre- 
mendous battle of Chancellors ville, in which the invaluable 
Stonewall Jackson fell, probably by the mistaken fire of his 
own men, pushed into Maryland. He proposed to sack Phila- 
delphia and even dreamed of taking New York with the help 
of a rising of the disaffected commercial classes. But on 
September 17, 1862, at Antietam, Lee was met by McClellan 
and stayed in his too confident exploit. Whether or not this 
was a victory for the Federals is debated by military critics. 
McClellan, who failed in every crisis, did not pursue Lee upon 
his retreat. 

The End of McClellan. — After thinking upon this with 
the utter passionlessness of his character as now developed, on 
October 13, Lincoln sent to McClellan a letter that any intelli- 
gent man, not too conceited to understand others, would have 
taken as notice either to bestir him or to prepare for recall. 
McClellan did not bestir himself. On November 7, he was 
superseded by Burnside. It was a military necessity, but it 
was bad politics, for it looked like the kind of "outrage" by 
which Presidents had been made. 

Emancipation. — The fall elections of 1862 had gone 
against the Republicans. Whether because he foresaw this 
and hoped to stem the tide of public weariness and disaffection 
or because he was indifferent to politics in a case Involving a 
fundamental moral principle, on September 22, 1862, Lincoln 
seized the recent news of the victory (such as it was) at Antie- 
tam and issued the preliminary emancipation proclamation. 
For it, he invoked the "war-powers" of the Constitution. Lin- 
coln himself defined these war-powers in many different ways ; 
they included whatever was necessary to preserve the Govern- 
ment. He hoped that Congress would immediately agree to 
several amendments to the Constitution and urged them in his 
message. Constitutions and statutory laws are silent under 
arms. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 459 

He Knew How to Write. — Beyond any other President, 
Lincoln knew how to write and to speak well. The message 
of December, 1862, contains such sentences as these, — "The 
dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. 
. . . We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save 
our country. . . . We cannot escape history. 
The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in 
honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. ... In giving 
freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free. . 
We shall nobly save or meanly lose, the last, best hope on 
earth."^ 

It is a strange thing that after Lincoln had actually per- 
suaded a reluctant House to give $10,000,000 in bonds to Mis- 
souri to compensate slaveowners for their slaves and the 
Senate to raise this to $15,000,000, the Missouri members and 
the lobbyists beat the bill in concurrence ! Unlike Lincoln, the 
slaveowners of the Border States thought that bondmen were 
better than United States bonds. Capitalism saw in slave- 
merchandise immense future gains. 

Amends the Constitution. — On January i, 1863, the 
President issued the Emancipation Proclamation, next after 
the Constitution itself and the Declaration of Independence, 
among the documentary foundations of modern American 
political liberty. This lifted Abraham Lincoln at once to rank 
with Jefferson and Madison. With no warrant of legal right, 
he virtually amended the Constitution. Because he signed the 
Proclamation late on New Year's Day, his radical anti-slavery 
critics grumbled at his reluctance and dilatoriness. Their busi- 
ness was now gone ; and Lincoln was not so eager a "convert" 
as they wished him to be. 

Negroes as Soldiers. — The President was now enrolling 
negroes as soldiers. The Confederacy answered by saying 
that if they captured any more white soldiers, they would 
enslave them and if any negroes in blue, they would execute 
them as felons by hanging. In reply, the President said that 
for every soldier hung, he would execute a rebel captive and 
for every soldier enslaved, he would put a rebel captive at 
hard labor on public works. Not much was ever done by the 
Confederacy in the way of hanging negro captives or of en- 
slaving white ones. Lincoln himself said that the 250,000 
negro volunteers were the balance of power that gave victory 

^The italics are Lincoln's. 



46o LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

to the Union in that these men not only fought for the Union 
but were just so many withdrawn from feeding and otherwise 
serving the Confederates. iVnd Lincoln seldom exaggerated a 
fact. The South has sometimes said that negroes and hired 
foreign immigrant boys fought and won the war. 

Union Progress Everywhere. — In the early days of July, 
1863, three great successes came to the Union armies. It is 
not true that, until this time, honors were even between the 
Federals and the Confederates. In the West and South, the 
Federals were far ahead. In Virginia, Lee had done better 
soldiering, but neither side had made any substantial gains, 
each still holding its Capital securely. On the seas, the Union 
was almost wholly successful ; only a few Gulf ports were open 
to the blockade runners. Nor is it wholly true that if the 
Confederates had lost in but one of these engagements and 
succeeded in two of them, or even if they had won in all of 
them, the Union cause would certainly have collapsed. But it 
is true that driving Bragg out of Kentucky, capturing Pem- 
berton at Vicksburg, and driving Lee out of Maryland a second 
time by winning Gettysburg constituted the crisis of the Civil 
War and that thereafter, while Lincoln's own stay at the White 
House was still problematical, the continuance of some 
Unionist there was likely. 

"I Can't Spare This Man; He Fights." — In the West, 
from June 24 to July 4, 1863, Rosecrans had driven Bragg be- 
fore him from Shelbyville to Tullahoma and thence across the 
southern boundary of Tennessee below the mountains. And 
on July 3, Vicksburg, the impregnable, surrendered to Grant, 
the soldier of whom Lincoln had said earlier in the war when 
the intriguers tried to rid themselves of him, — "I can't spare 
this man ; he fights." No other commander on either side would 
have dared to storm Vicksburg, and few would have been per- 
tinacious and coldhearted enough to lay their soldiers in those 
malarial trenches and starve Vicksburg into surrender while 
the besiegers rotted with disease. Grant did both storm and 
besiege Vicksburg. His business was to get Vicksburg. And 
Pemberton surrendered on July 4. This was the greatest mili- 
tary exploit of the War.^ And now Lincoln had a second 
military hero raised up to contest the Presidency, this one in 
his own party. But, fortunately. Grant had not only the un- 
conquerable soul of a great commander but also a noble loyalty 

*See pp. 496 et seq., infra. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 461 

of heart/ To him on July 16, 1863, Abraham Lincohi wrote: 
"I now wish to make a personal acknowledgment that you 
were right, and I was wrong." The President knew that at last 
he had found the right general to win the war. 

Gettysburg. — On July i, 2 and 3, the greatest battle of the 
Inter- State War was fought. Lee, whose primacy as a soldier 
in the Confederate Army was indisputable after the deaths of 
A. S. Johnston at Shiloh and of "Stonewall" Jackson at Chan- 
cellorsville, was undismayed by the failure at Antietam and 
now renewed his plan of sacking Northern cities. He met 
Meade at Gettysburg, and on the third day of that tremendous 
battle when Pickett's charge failed, and the high tide of the 
"Rebellion" was rolled back, as the battle monument recites, 
went down in defeat that broke forever the prestige of the 
Confederacy. 

Meade could have sent 80,000 men after Lee at once. And 
the President knew it. Representative democracies make bad 
messes of all their wars. 

Hooker Redeems Himself. — On October 16, 1863, Lin- 
coln replaced Rosecrans by Thomas, "the Rock of Chicka- 
mauga," and made Grant commander in the West. On No- 
vember 24th and 25th came the battle of Lookout Mountain, 
"above the clouds," when Hooker who had lost at Chancellors- 
ville (he had been dazed by a bad wound in the head) redeemed 
himself by the victorious charge of his men up the mountain- 
side without orders. It was in this battle that Hooker, Sheri- 
dan, and Sherman, all fighting men, rode into fame. 

The Leader of the Copperheads. — The story of Clement 
L. Vallandigham, a Copperhead Democrat of Dayton, Ohio, is 
closely connected with the policy of Lincoln. This emotional 
and effeminate man was an active Southern sympathizer. On 
March 25, 1863, Burnside, who, on December 17, 1862, had 
uselessly lost 13,000 out of 113,000 men at Fredericksburg, 
had been transferred to the Department of the Ohio. In a gen- 
eral order, he said that he would send talkative Copperheads 
southward to "their friends." Vallandigham had been a 
member of Congress since 1856, a fact that shows the character 
of the Dayton District. He now let loose a flood of speech ; 
and on May 4, Burnside arrested him and consigned him to 
jail, refusing to give him up on habeas corpus proceedings. A 
tremendous outcry arose against Burnside, who offered to 

*See p. 463, inyra. 



462 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

resign ; but Lincoln kept him in command. On May 25, Burn- 
side gave Vallandigham to a Confederate picket in Tennessee, 
and the Congressman by running the blockade at last by sea- 
travel reached Canada, whence he issued manifestoes to the 
Ohio Democracy. On May 16, rich Governor Seymour of 
New York, who was either muddled or a secessionist, too cow- 
ardly to act upon his principles, at a huge concourse of Demo- 
crats in New York City declared that the critical question was 
"whether this war' is waged to put down rebellion at the South 
or free institutions at the North." 

On June 11, the Ohio Democrats nominated Vallandigham 
for governor, whereupon Lincoln wrote another of his won- 
derful letters, — "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier-boy 
who deserts, while I must not touch a* hair of the wily agitator 
who induces him to desert?" Nor was this mere rhetoric. 
More than one-half of all the soldiers of the North were less 
than nineteen years old ; and in the South likewise.^ 

A Good Political Move. — The Union men countered by 
nominating as the Republican candidate a War Democrat, 
John B rough. The Copperhead Democrat against the war and 
the War Democrat made the issue clear as the sun at noon day ; 
and Ohio decided by over 100,000 majority to let Brough serve 
as governor. It was a Lincoln political victory. 

New York City Draft Riot. — On July 13, 1863, the day 
that Lee escaped across the Potomac because Meade was in- 
efficient, the New York City draft riot broke out. A thousand 
citizens were killed; but with 10,000 troops, Lincoln put att- 
end to the hangmg of negroes to lampposts and to all the rest 
of the murderous street rioting. 

The Gettysburg Speech. — On November 19, 1863, the 
National Cemetery at Gettysburg, where the slain of that awful 
carnage were buried by thousands in nameless graves, was 
dedicated. Edward Everett made the address; and Lincoln 
accepted the cemetery in the little speech of two hundred and 
fifty words that to-day is better known in America than any- 

*In 1864, in Darien, Connecticut, a school teacher, twenty-two years, 
and his fourteen boys, from fifteen to seventeen years old, all enlisted 
upon the same day. A Dayton, Ohio, family of seven boys sent every 
one into the army — they averaged sixteen years at enlistment ; and one 
of them went at twelve years of age. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 463 

thing else in the English language save a few passages only 
in the Bible itself, better known even than the Declaration of 
Independence with whose proposition that "all men are created 
equal" it begins. The speech ends "that we here highly resolve 
that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, 
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth." The phrases were old; but Lincoln 
made them immortal by his felicitous use of them. 

Party Politics. — Early in 1864, it was still a question 
whether or not Lincoln would be renominated. There was a 
candidate in his own Cabinet, Salmon P. Chase, who had been 
Republican governor of Ohio; but the story of the defalcation 
of Gibson, the Republican Ohio State Treasurer, to the extent 
of $500,000 of money was a sore subject in the reform party. 
This candidacy broke down when Rhode Island, whose Gov- 
ernor William Sprague was the husband of Kate Chase, the 
brilliant and only child of the Secretary, refused to support 
him against Lincoln. 

"Don't Swap Horses in Midstream.'"' — ^Another can- 
didate was Fremont, who had been defeated for the Presi- 
dency in 1856 by Buchanan. He had a considerable following 
in Missouri. What would have happened to this nation if the 
President had been ineligible to reelection ? The nation might 
have dissolved in 1864 with a Fremont for President. 

Grant also had supporters, but he was too loyal and too sen- 
sible to allow the use of his name. And Seward likewise. At 
this stage, the remark of Lincoln about swapping horses when 
crossing a stream began to tell with the plain people. 

Horace Greeley, William Cullen Bryant, and Wendell Phil- 
lips could not turn the tide against Lincoln. The Republican 
voters desired his nomination, and on the first ballot at the 
Baltimore Convention June 7, 1864, he received 484 votes to 
22 for Grant, all of the latter from the Missouri delegation, 
whose presence was contested by a pro-Lincoln delegation. 
But before the ballot was announced, the anti-Lincoln Missou- 
rians arose and transferred their votes to Lincoln. On the first 
ballot for Vice-President, the votes stood : Andrew Johnson 
200, Hannibal Hamlin 150, D. S. Dickinson 108. This ballot 
was then made unanimous. Both Johnson and Dickinson were 



464 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

War Democrats. They were favored to "balance the ticket." 
Lincoln himself, ever anxious to hold the Border States — was 
it not partly due to love for Kentucky? — favored Johnson. 

Lincoln versus McClellan. — Late in August, the Demo- 
crats met and nominated General George B. McClellan. His 
chances of election were good, perhaps better than those of 
Lincoln. Three-fourths of the soldiers were Republicans, and 
though it was intended to count their votes, yet the absence 
of these young men affected the Republican enthusiasm. The 
Republican national politicians were unfriendly to their leader. 

A Constitutional Convention Proposed. — It was a 
political situation somewhat comparable with that of a king 
with his people when the nobles are against him. Benjamin 
Wade, H. W. Davis, and Thaddeus Stevens were without zeal 
or interest save in condemning the policy and the moves of the 
President. Perhaps, at no other time was so much bad advice 
given to Lincoln as in the summer and early fall of 1864; 
even Governor Morton of Indiana, a real war-governor at 
heart, advised dropping the question of slavery and seeking 
peace under the Constitution with the rebels. Let the country 
hold a Constitution Convention to end the slavery question! 

Yet Lincoln went on with his unpopular measures; among 
them issuing on July 18 a call for 500,000 men, most of them 
to be drafted, for the three-year enlistments of 1861 were 
fast expiring. Far better would it have been then to have ac- 
cepted only "enlistments for the war." 

"What," asked Lincoln of the objecting politicians, "is the 
Presidency worth to me if I have no country?" 

The Fatal Peace Plank. — But the Democratic party had 
made one serious, perhaps the fatal, political error. Vallandig- 
ham had caused a peace plank to be put into the party plat- 
form; and McClellan repudiated it. The peace plank fright- 
ened away the War Democrats, and the presence of Andrew 
Johnson, on the Republican ticket, attracted them. There 
were too many dead in Union graves to be forgotten. 

Grant in Full Charge of the War. — On March 3, 1864, 
Ulysses S. Grant had been confirmed by the Senate upon nomi- 
nation of Lincoln as lieutenant-general of the army "during 
the pleasure of the President." He put Sherman in command 
in the West. 

On July 10, 1863, Early made his raid upon Washington, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 465 

and next day Lincoln, going out to the line of the fort at 
Seventh Avenue, was under fire, an officer being wounded at 
his side. Grant heard of the raid just in time to release Gen- 
eral Wright with two divisions from the Army of the Potomac 
and to get them up to the wharves. This relief saved Wash- 
ington from being sacked by 17,000 Confederate veterans. 

Late in August, Captain David G. Farragut lashed himself 
to the mast of a ship and headed a squadron into Mobile Bay, 
which he knew was full of mines. Under heavy fire, he took 
the harbor. It was a spectacular exploit, now world-famous. 
The Confederacy was hermetically sealed along the seaboard. 
This was the first great good news of the year to the Union 
side. 

On September 3, General W. T. Sherman seized Atlanta, 
where the Confederates had taken to manufacturing, for the 
blockade was a prohibitive tariff, and had converted it into a: 
fortress and depot of supplies, relentlessly turning the inhabi- 
tants out into the surrounding farms and villages. Georgia 
had been the source of most of the supplies of Lee's Army of 
Virginia. 

Political Phases. — At this time, the Charleston "Courier" 
remarked, — "Our success in battle insures the success of Mc- 
Clellan (at the polls). Our failure will inevitably lead to his 
defeat." This paragraph, repeated throughout the North, cost 
McClellan many votes. On September 23, in order to hold 
Ohio safely Republican, Lincoln displaced Montgomery Blair, 
Postmaster-General, and appointed ex-Governor Dennison of 
Ohio, a move that helped to allay political dissatisfaction there. 

Sheridan in the Shenandoah. — At this time. General 
Philip Sheridan was sent into the Shenandoah valley, the gran- 
ary of the Army of Virginia. He did his work so thoroughly 
that it was said, "A crow cannot fly through the Shenandoah 
valley unless he carries his provisions with him." On October 
19, at Cedar Creek, Early attacked Sheridan's forces, when 
their leader was "at Winchester, twenty miles away," returning 
from Washington; and he drove them in retreat, all save a 
small body of resolute men. When Sheridan heard of this, he 
rode forward at breakneck speed, rallied the resolute men, and 
started for the front. "Never mind, boys, we'll whip them 
yet !" he shouted ; and they whipped Early before darkness fell. 

Sherman Marches On. — President Davis now ordered 



466 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Hood, who had evacuated Atlanta, to go to Nashville and to 
fight Thomas. This move caused Sherman to say, — "I will 
give him the rations to go with." Davis replied that between 
Hood and Johnston, he would grind Sherman to powder. 
Sherman, then at Atlanta, set out with sixty thousand men to 
make a track sixty miles wide to the sea. On November 15 
he burned the city, and to the tune of "John Brown's body lies 
a-mouldering in the grave," began his march to the Atlantic 
seaboard. "Forage liberally" was one of his orders to his men. 
When some local inhabitants protested at his outrages, he re- 
marked coolly, — "War is hell!" It was the spirit of Early at 
Chambersburg. In earlier ages, such commanders would have 
killed all discoverable non-combatants. Even war grows 
milder. 

On Christmas Eve, Sherman wired to Lincoln, — "I beg to 
present to you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah." He 
had lost but eight hundred men upon the march. 

A Terrible Defeat for the South. — On December 15 
and 16, Hood met Thomas at Nashville. He had 39,000 men 
and lost 15,000, while Thomas had 55,000 and lost 3,000. For 
the South, it was the most terrible defeat of the War. 

Lincoln Re-elected. — On November 8, 1864, there were 
cast at the Presidential election 2,330,572 votes for the Re- 
publican electors, and 1,835,985 for the Democratic. Lincoln 
had a plurality of 494,567 over McClellan. The Electoral Col- 
lege stood : 

212 for Lincoln, 21 for McClellan. 

The soldiers voted 116,887 for Lincoln, and 33,748 for Mc- 
Clellan. The Vermont, Kansas, and Minnesota soldier-votes 
were disallowed. The soldier-vote showed that only one sol- 
died in six was over twenty-one years of age and a citizen. 
The boys in blue, the negroes and the foreigners could not 
vote. 

His Gentle Speech. — On November 10, to serenaders 
from the Republican clubs of the District of Columbia, which 
was overwhelmingly secessionist or at least peace-Democrat, 
Lincoln said, — "So long as I have been here, I have not will- 
ingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom!" This is a signifi- 
cant revelation of character. 

Chase Head of Supreme Court. — On October 2, 1864, 
Chief Justice Taney died. Lincoln desired to name to the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 467 

vacancy Montgomery Blair because he was fond of him per- 
sonally and grateful to him and to his brothers for many 
important political services. But when Congress assembled, 
he sent in the name of Salmon P. Chase ; and for this nomina- 
tion, his purposes and motives were characteristically mixed, 
for Lincoln was intensely human. He considered Chase the 
ablest man in America, and the Chief Justiceship next to the 
most important office. He was grateful to Chase for filling 
the Government Treasury so skillfully for the nation's needs. 
And he was glad to get Chase out of the way. Lincoln under- 
stood himself well enough to smile cheerfully when at a White 
House reception Kate Chase told him that the last purpose 
was the real one. 

Winding-up of the War. — ^At last, the War was winding 
up. Grant drove on to Richmond. Sherman was marching 
up from the sea. The last little Confederate harbors were 
seized. The "Kearsarge" had sunk the terrible "Alabama" in 
June, and in November the last one of the rebel privateers 
came into Liverpool, where the British authorities gave her 
up to the United States officers; and Charles Francis Adams 
scored another diplomatic victory. In October, Lieutenant 
Gushing had blown up the Confederate ram "Albemarle." 

A dozen propositions to settle the war had been made from 
Richmond or from Confederate sympathizers out of Rich- 
mond. On February i, 1865, President Lincoln and Secretary 
Seward met three Confederate commissioners on board a 
steamer at Hampton Roads, — Stephens, Hunter, and Camp- 
bell. But nothing could be effected between them. 

Four days later, the President worked out a generous plan to 
pay $400,000,000 to the slave States, provided their opposition 
ceased by April i. But neither Congress nor Confederacy 
would listen to his plan. 

The Second Inaugural. — On March 4, 1865, Lincoln read 
his second inaugural of scarcely eight hundred flaming words. 
The last sentences were these, — "Fondly do we hope, fervently 
do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass 
away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth 
piled by the bondmen's two hundred and fifty years of un- 
requited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn 
by the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as 



468 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 
'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' 

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
ness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive 
on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's 
i wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and 
for his widow, and his orphan, — to do all that may achieve 
a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." 

In January, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution 
had been carried in Congress ; this was a confident f orthlooking 
upon the future. 

Lincoln Walks Through Richmond. — On April 2, 1865, 
President Jefferson Davis and his Government abandoned 
Richmond. Next morning early, President Abraham Lincoln 
walked through the streets of the burning city. It was to 
Lieutenant Jefferson Davis of the regular army that poverty- 
stricken Captain Abraham Lincoln, of the Illinois militia, in the 
Black Hawk War, had given his oath of allegiance.^ Who can 
measure the tragic changes of life! 

Appomattox. — On April 7, 7,000 starving soldiers of Lee's 
army were trapped by Grant ; and not unwillingly surrendered. 
On April 9, with Sheridan on the road in front of him and with 
Grant in his rear, at Appomattox, Lee surrendered his remain- 
ing 28,231 men; and asked for food for his soldiers. They 
were beaten not by bullet nor by sword, but by superior politics, 
marshalling vastly greater numbers and cutting off their food 
supply. The true explanation of the defeat of the Confed- 
erates is to be found not at army headquarters upon either 
side. 

The Last Portrait. — In 1863 ^^d 1864, Lincoln was phys- 
ically in bad condition, suffering greatly from insomnia, in- 
digestion, a deranged liver, and malaria. His endurance was 
that of the spirit; he was living on his nerve. In March, 1865. 
when his last portrait was painted, the change was striking and 
ominous. His eyes had sunk deep into his head. His cheeks 
were wan, and his smile pathetic and weary. For all the relief 
of peace, it is improbable that he would have survived the 
summer in the torrid Potomac valley even though he spent it 
as usual at the Soldiers' Home upon the hill-elevation of three 
hundred feet above tidewater. The White House is but forty 
feet above tidewater. The Potomac flats were not drained 

^See p. 391, supra, and p. 475, t»/r«. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 469 

then as they are now; and disease-infected mosquitoes 
flourished. 

And yet for all his ill-health, Lincoln set out bravely to put 
through his reconstruction policy. How fair, how prompt this 
policy was ! It was well that he died, — for the fairness of this 
policy, many in the North would have execrated him. 

On April 9, 1865, Lincoln and his wife were coming up 
from City Point on the Potomac to Washington. "That city," 
said his wife, "is filled with our enemies !" 

The man retorted impatiently, — "Enemies! we must never 
speak of that." His too charitable heart deluded him. 

Enemies at Work. — On the 14th, they went together to 
Ford's Theater. Laura Keane was playing in "Our American 
Cousin." The usual sentry for Lincoln was away for the 
evening. Another guard stood at his box, became fascinated 
by the acting, and sat down in the audience. Next day, he was 
crazed with grief for a broken duty; and died a year or so 
afterwards. 

The President and Mrs. Lincoln had expected General and 
Mrs. Grant to join them; but they decided instead to visit their 
children at a private school in Burlington. Just after ten 
o'clock, John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who for several days past 
had been drinking heavily, in the absence of the attendant, 
came to the door of the box, pushed in, fastened the door with 
a bar previously made ready, shot the President in the head 
from the back, slashed his military aide with a knife, jumped 
to the stage, crying, ''Sic semper tyrannis!" and escaped to a 
horse that a theater employe was holding for him. 

At the same hour, Secretary Seward, in bed from an acci- 
dent, was stabbed by an assassin who gained access to his room 
by the pretense of bringing medicine. Others also of his house- 
hold were nearly killed. His wife and daughter died of 
shock. 

A Plot Revealed. — The plot included the murders also of 
Grant, of Stanton, and of Johnson. Its purpose was to break 
down the National Government by murdering its chief 
operators. 

Within a few days, the Government had in custody seven 
men, — Herold, Spangler, Payne, O'Laughlin, Arnold, Atzerot, 
and Mudd, — and one woman, — Mary E. Surratt. They dared 
not prosecute in the civil courts of the District before a jury, 



470 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

for two good reasons. First, the citizens were hostile to Lin- 
coln and to the Government ; and for that reason alone would 
not convict. They did not see how white people could live 
upon terms of equality with the freed negroes. They could 
not understand the sharp distinction that Lincoln drew be- 
tween political equality and social equality. Sixty years later 
finds the South without political equality in order to insure 
the social inferiority of negroes and mestizos. 

The second reason is that the city of Washington^ was 
honeycombed, as it is yet, by secret societies, factionalized by 
religious parties, and corrupted by abominable relations main- 
tained between the sexes out of wedlock. This is true of all 
great cities ; but it was and is true of Washington beyond other 
cities of its size or anyv^^here near its size because it is a political 
maelstrom, sucking in the riffraff, flotsam and jetsam, floaters, 
not yet convicted criminals, not yet incarcerated lunatics of all 
America. It sucks them in, and it crushes their lives. The 
conspirators against Lincoln, Seward, Grant, Johnson and 
others were a typical assortment. They had some friends and 
many sympathizers of the same ilk. 

The Military Commission. — In consequence, the Federal 
Government resorted to a military commission. This was 
unconstitutional and also otherwise illegal. But it always has 
been, and it always will be, characteristic of the National Gov- 
ernment to ignore the Constitution and the general statutes in 
its management of its satrapy, the District of Columbia, the 
glory of whose name covers the multitude of its misfortunes. 
The victims of their own hatefulness were to be railroaded to 
their doom. 

The commission hanged four of the conspirators, including 
the woman, Mrs. Surratt. The others save Spangler were 
sent to prison for life; he was sentenced for six years. The 
trial revealed the vile and miserable life of the District board- 
ing-houses. Booth, but twenty-seven years old, son and brother 
of actors and of actresses of international reputation, left the 
room of his mistress to kill the President. He had been killed 
when resisting arrest in a barn in Maryland, In jumping from 
the box of the President, he had broken a leg because the spur 
of a riding-boot had caught in a Union flag that draped the 
box; and he had gone to a doctor miles away for treatment. 
This was the sole connection of unhappy Doctor Sidney Mudd 

^See p. 521, infra. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 471 

with the conspiracy. After a time, Mudd was pardoned, as 
were others. Justice was done and overdone. 

No Relation with Confederate Government. — What 
was not proven was any connection of the Confederate Gov- 
ernment as such or of Jefferson Davis or of Clement L. Val- 
landigham or of any other prominent man with the plot. If 
Jefferson Davis had intended to get rid of Abraham Lincoln by 
assassination, he would have succeeded long before April 14, 
1865. Neither Davis nor Lincoln would have regretted in the 
least the death of the other; their armies intended killing their 
enemies. But in the wars of civilization, there are no murders, 
poisonings and assassinations of such character. 

All the World Mourned the Death of Lincoln. — 
Next morning, without recovering consciousness, Abraham 
Lincoln died of the bullet wound. All the world staggered at 
the horror. Melodrama never invented anything else so tragic, 
so apparently impossible. Before pale death, censure was silent, 
and is silent. The man and his good deeds, his good purposes, 
his good motives rose sacrosanct from the grave. There was 
a transformation of public sentiment as by miracle. For once 
in human history, in the presence of this man slain in deliberate 
malice, the people said, — "Verily, the causeless curse may 
come." 

The body of Abraham Lincoln was conveyed through cities 
of the North, and in many of them shown in state to mourn- 
ing thousands, and tens of thousands. The burial took place 
at his home in Springfield, Illinois. 

Mrs. Lincoln, the mother of his four sons, only one of 
whom, — Robert Todd Lincoln, — grew to manhood, lived until 
1882. 

The Later Cabinet. — Lincoln made no change and suf- 
fered none in the Departments of State and of the Navy. His 
later Secretaries in the other Departments were : 

Treasury, — William P. Fessenden of Maine, one year, suc- 
ceeded by Hugh McCulloch of Indiana. 

War, — Edwin M. Stanton of Ohio, three years. 

Attorney-General, — James Speed^ of Kentucky, five months. 

Postmaster-General, — William Dennison of Ohio, a half 
year. 

Interior, — John P. Usher of Indiana, a year and a half. 

Considering all the difficulties of the Interstate War, and 

*See p. 436, supra. 



472 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

comparing this record with the record of Tyler, one is unable 
to avoid the conclusion that Abraham Lincoln was a good 
judge of men for specific purposes. 

In a Common Despair, They Went to War. — For all his 
humor, no sadder man ever lived than Abraham Lincoln. He, 
because of whom half a million young men and boys North 
and South had perished for the social order in the trial to re- 
establish the old Union of States, perished himself a victim of 
the common cataclysm. Fittingly so. They were all common 
human beings together ; and they shared the common fate be- 
cause not enough were wise enough to see any way out of the 
common affliction of incompetent government. War is un- 
reason ; but in a common despair, they went to war. 

The Poet of Democracy. — Abraham Lincoln had brought 
the ship of State to harbor. Walt Whitman, the war-poet 
and democratic philosopher, fittingly chanted, — 

"O Captain ! My Captain ! Our fearful trip is done, 
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; 

But O heart! heart! heart! 

O the bleeding drops of red. 
Whereon the deck my Captain lies. 

Fallen cold and dead. 



My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or will, 

The ship is anchored safe and sound; its voyage closed and done. 

From fearful trip, the victor ship comes in with object won; 

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells ! 

But I with mournful tread 
Walk the deck my Captain lies, 

Fallen cold and dead." 



JEFFERSON DAVIS 473. 



CHAPTER XVII 

The President of the Confederate States of 
North America — Jefferson Davis 

1861-1865 
1808-1889 

ii-o States Population 11,000,000 

Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, 
Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas. 

Lincoln not President de facto of all the United States — the Confederate 
States — the prophecy of Pierce — the South furnished the battlefields — 
early life — education — in U. S. A. — wife died — planter and student — 
second wife — Representative in Congress — strict constructionist — 
colonel at Buena Vista — Senator — Secretary of War — Major-General 
C. S. A. — President C. S. A. — the dreams of dominion — the trust of the 
Confederacy — causes of defeat — Antietam and Gettysburg both errors 
— the strife between Davis and the Confederate States Congress — 
the blockade — too late — arrest — indictment for treason — amnesty — the 
martyr of the "Lost Cause" — retirement in Europe — wrote histories 
of the Government — the politicians started in to loot — death of Davis 
in Mississippi. 

Lincoln Never De Facto President of all the States. 
— Abraham Lincoln was never in fact President of the whole 
land of the United States. Government is paramount force; 
and the armies of the Union were not able wholly to subdue 
the armies of the Confederacy until in May, 1865, in Texas 
the last of the rebels laid down their arms.^ Separation in fact 
began in the autumn of i860, when the National Government 
ceased in certain parts of the South to be able to enforce its 
laws. 

The Confederacy. — The Confederate States came into 
being as an independent nation at Montgomery, Alabama, in 
February, 1861.^ Next month, the permanent Constitution was 
ratified. It contained only a few changes from that of the 
United States. The most important change was in the 
locus of sovereignty. The Confederacy was a union of 

*See p. 500, infra. *See p. 425, supra. 



474 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

States; the United States a union of "the people."^ Other 
changes were ( i ) a State might impeach a Confederate offi- 
cial; (2) a State official took no oath to obey the Confederate 
Constitution; (3) the President served six years and was 
ineligible to reelection; (4) he could veto parts of bills; (5) 
members of the Cabinet had seats in Congress; (6) tariffs 
must be for revenue only; (7) expenditures for internal 
improvements were permitted for navigation only; (8) the 
postoffice department must be self-supporting; (9) subsidies 
to commerce or industry were forbidden; and (10) slavery 
was recognized and the rights of slaveowners were guaranteed. 
Some of these chapges were statesmanlike and wise. 

Eleven States joined the Confederacy.^ 

A Former President Proves to be a False Prophet, — 
Ex-President Pierce, in New Hampshire, wrote to Jefferson 
Davis, who had been his Secretary of State, January 6, i860, 
that the war would be "in our own streets." He looked for 
disunion at the North. 

In the same month, Mayor Fernando Wood and the Council 
of New York adopted a resolution to make it a free city to 
be known as "Tri-Insula" and to be neutral between the United 
and the Confederate States. It was a popular "business men's 
proposition." 

The South Furnished the Battlefields. — Suppose that 
instead of the upper tier of the slavery States hesitating 
between the Union and the Confederacy, the lower tier of 
the wage-service States had hesitated ; in other words, imagine 
Lincoln striving to hold New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas, and Davis secure in the 
possession of Maryland, all Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri ! 
The mere supposition shows the first and greatest handicap of 
the South, — it had to furnish the battlefields and to endure 
the break-up of its ordinary occupations. Of all the Northern 
States, only Pennsylvania ever saw a Southern army; and in 
Maryland, Antietam was the only important battle. Though 
the Confederacy first sounded the alarms of war, the United 
States in fact came first into the field. Bad as Bull Run was 
for the North, it was south of Washington, not north of 

^See the first sentence beginning, "We, the people." 
^See p. 428, supra. 



JEFFERSON DAVIS 475 

Mason and Dixon's line. Abraham Lincoln believed that to 
hold the Border States was in the end to win the war. If at 
any time, they had turned against him, almost certainly the 
compulsory Union side would have lost. 

The Personal Element in the Failure of the "Lost 
Cause.^' — In a way, the War between the States was a trial 
between two men. This comparison may be put in a variety of 
forms. The chief of the "Lost Cause" had no such perspicacity 
as the President of the old United States. Perspicacity would 
have led him to counsel peace after Donelson in 1862, to seek 
it after Vicksburg and Gettysburg in 1863, ^^^ to surrender 
after Atlanta fell in 1864, He had no such tact as Lincoln. 
Tact would have led him to do a thousand things differently. 
Davis was in truth confronting the ablest politician of his 
generation, and Davis himself was not even the ablest politician 
in the South. 

But the comparison may be put in another form. Davis was 
abundantly equipped with theories and with knowledge. His 
mind was full. His will was strong — we never had a better 
Secretary of War. He meant to carry out his theories, — to 
make the Confederate Constitution and all its principles work. 
Therefore, he could not send his armies in 1861 to "invade" 
Ohio or Maryland. Nor could he give to his generals a free 
hand, for the civil authority was over the military. Nor could 
he "coerce" the States into sending him soldiers. Nor could 
he arm negroes to fight. Nor could his government operate 
the railroads. Lincoln had different views. 

One reason why the defeat of the Confederacy was inevita- 
ble was Jefferson Davis himself. 

Early Life; West Point Graduate. — He was born in 
Christian County (now Todd) in Kentucky, June 3, 1808, at 
the village of Fairfield. His father was a Welshman, his 
mother of Scotch-Irish descent, in other words, Saxon, from 
North Ireland. Soon after his birth, they moved to Wilkinson 
County, Mississippi, where they prospered. Jefferson was sent 
to Transylvania College at Lexington, Kentucky, and then to 
West Point, for his education. There he was graduated in 
1828. For seven years, he saw military service in Missouri, 
Wisconsin, Illinois, and lowa.^ 

Marriage; Wife Dies. — Then in June, 1835, he married 
clandestinely Knox, daughter of Zachary Taylor, and went 

^See p. 391, supra. 



476 THE CONFEDERATE PRESIDENT 

into Warren County to become a cotton planter. Only a few 
months later, his wife died when they were on a visit to Louis- 
iana; Davis himself had the fever (cholera) but recovered. 
Then the father and the husband were reconciled in a com- 
mon grief. 

For seven years after the disease passed, he nursed his broken 
health, read books of philosophy, economics, law, and litera- 
ture (wherefore his critics called him "doctrinaire"), and 
worked his plantation, making it highly profitable. 

Second Marriage. — In February, 1845, he married again, 
— his bride being Varina Howell, a granddaughter of Gov- 
ernor Richard Howell of New Jersey, but herself a native of 
Mississippi. In the same year, he was elected to Congress. By 
study, he had become a strict constructionist of the Constitu- 
tion and an admirer of John C. Calhoun, a metaphysician, a 
statesman, a seer, and a prophet, yet not wholly safe. 

It was to be the fate of Jefferson Davis to become himself 
the exponent of Calhoun's last notion of our having two Presi- 
dents,^ and to verify his prediction that the South would be 
forced to secede "in order to preserve the domestic 
institutions." Each thought that our country needed a me- 
chanical readjustment, whereas we really needed new ideas. 

United States Senator. — Davis volunteered for the Mexi- 
can War, becoming colonel under Taylor, and was badly 
wounded at Buena Vista. Recovering, he was sent in 1847 to 
the United States Senate; but after strongly opposing the Com- 
promise of 1850, he resigned in 1851, to run for governor 
against his fellow Senator, Henry Stuart Foote. Davis stood 
for secession only as a last resort, while Foote was a Union 
Democrat. The former temporarily lost his eyesight and could 
conduct no canvass, and the latter won, though by but 1009 
votes. 

A Fine Secretary of War. — In 1853 President Pierce ap- 
pointed Davis to the Cabinet as Secretary of War, in which 
office he showed conspicuous ability. He caused three trans- 
continental railway routes to be surveyed; enlarged and mod- 
ernized the army; revised the military tactics; perfected the 
signal corps service; and strengthened the coast defences and 
the frontier posts. His efficiency was to be his ruin. 

A Leader in the Senate. — In 1857 the Mississippi Legis- 
lature again placed Jefferson Davis in the Senate, where he 

^See p. 397, supra. 



JEFFERSON DAVIS 477 

became the floor leader of the Secessionists. By vigorously 
opposing Douglas, he helped to split the Democratic party. He 
insisted upon the rights of slaveowners to hold their slaves in 
any part of the Territories, thereby accepting in full the dicta 
of the Dred Scott decision.^ In i860 he warned the Senate 
that if Lincoln should be elected, the Southern States would 
secede. 

On January 10, 1861, he argued that secession was a 
constitutional right and said that the States of the South would 
be degraded if they did not now all secede. Eleven days later, 
in a pathetic speech, he resigned from the Senate. Four days 
later, Mississippi made him a major general of volunteers. On 
February 9, 1861, he became President of the Confederacy, 
and nine days later was duly inaugurated. He did not desire 
the office, but a field command. He now began to display 
military efficiency in the highest civil office. 

President of the Confederate States. — Davis had im- 
pressed men as of the purest personal motives and character, 
courteous, able, efficient, and brilliant in literary and oratorical 
expression. But he had no experience as an independent 
administrator in a State governorship, none as a diplomat in 
the international service, none in any business save cotton- 
planting with slave-labor and with a simple market for his 
product. He was not, like Toombs and Yancey, eager for 
war, nor was he, like Stephens, opposed to it ; but he occupied 
the middle ground. Therefore, he hoped that the Peace Con- 
gress would succeed. He did not grip into the situation as 
promptly as he might. The change of the Capital of the 
Confederacy to Richmond, May 29, 1861, cost some weeks 
that were needed for more important business. He gave to 
moving time required for fighting. 

Where Shall the Capital Be? — As they had copied the 
United States Constitution, so the Confederates desired Wash- 
ington for their Capital. As they well knew, it was not their logi- 
cal political center. Anyone of a dozen other cities would have 
served better, — among them Savannah, Atlanta, Mobile, or 
New Orleans. W. E. Gladstone said that Davis "made a 
nation;" but neither the President nor any other prominent 
Southerner ever dispossessed his mind of the old national 
geography and integrated the Confederacy as a really free new 
nation, — free in thought, free from incongruous traditions. 

^See p. 417, supra. 



478 THE CONFEDERATE PRESIDENT 

If the seceders had properly conceived the new nation, they 
might have so located and fortified their Capital as to prevent 
its taking by any army that the North could have raised. Their 
real failure was in formulating fundamental and essential 
ideas. They moved too fast to think fully and clearly. Their 
attack upon Washington aroused too many splendid memories. 
Lincoln could raise a hundred thousand men to defend Wash- 
ington more easily than he could have raised one thousand 
to invade the South and to take (for example) Chattanooga 
or Atlanta. 

No Departing in Peace. — On March 31, 1861, General 
Winfield Scott wrote to William H. Seward regarding seces- 
sion, — "Wayward sisters, depart in peace!" It was the cau- 
tion of the head of the Federal army to the Secretary- 
appointed who was to commission all Federal officers and to 
manage our foreign affairs. But the sisters really never 
intended to depart in peace or in war. What they really 
intended was to restore this country to the actual condition 
of 1776 when slave-labor and wage-service existed side-by- 
side from Boston to Savannah. The Supreme Court had ter- 
ritorialized slavery ; they meant to renationalize it. 

The leaders of secession meant to secure the international 
place and prestige of Washington and to get and to keep its 
splendid treasures. Once let the Confederacy occupy Wash- 
ington, and it would seem to be the elder of the nations at 
war. But it aimed also to take and to keep Baltimore, Phila- 
delphia, and New York, — Baltimore being slavery soil and 
the other cities, the natural commercial allies of slavery. 
Extremists among them dreamed that New England and upper 
New York State might form a little separate nation ; and that 
the old Northwest from Pittsburg to the headwaters of the 
Mississippi might be another nation. All of the new West of 
the Louisiana Purchase and of the Far Northwest was to be 
Confederate. 

For the United States, they hoped to substitute another 
nation through nearly or quite all of the same region and with 
the same Capital, — the Confederate States. By successful 
secession, they meant to accomplish what our forefathers did 
in 1 775-1 783, — change the government. Successful rebellion 
is revolution ; but they were not rebels at heart, — they desired 
the sovereignty of the nation and asserted the sovereignty of 



JEFFERSON DAVIS 479 

the States, which is loyalty and patriotism. War proved their 
error, for government is paramount force. 

Two Capitals, a hundred miles apart, could never have 
existed upon this continent; and no Confederate believed that 
they could. 

The Trust of the South. — The Southerners were not 
afraid of Northern city clerks, mechanics, tradespeople, 
farmers, and school boys all in unfamiliar arms. 

Next, they trusted in cotton. Without cotton, England 
would starve for want of goods to exchange with the world 
for food supplies. Then, they trusted in their four million 
negroes to feed and to clothe them while they fought. And 
they trusted to Confederate patriotism to take irredeemable 
paper money at par through faith in the ultimate triumph of 
right, their right. 

Their trust in their own martial valor was not misplaced ; 
but the Northern school boys, clerks, and farmers soon revealed 
an equal martial valor. Moreover, Northern capitalism found 
a way to hire foreign immigrants by tens of thousands for 
the Union armies. 

Their trust in cotton was good as far as the owners of 
cotton instruments of production were concerned; but the 
workingman of England preferred to starve rather than to 
help the owners of slaves. Their trust in their negroes was 
generally warranted; and yet one million of them were too 
old or too young or too feeble to work. Only one million of 
the negroes were strong enough to work hard, of whom before 
the war was over one-quarter were in the Union armies. Of 
all the Union enlisted men in 1865, one-fifth were former 
negro slaves fighting the masters upon whose plantations they 
had grown up. 

Confederate patriotism was sincere. Girls gave up their 
lovers to die on battlefields, wives their husbands, mothers 
their sons. No hired strangers fought in the Southern armies ; 
no negro boys; no bounty- jumpers enlisted over and over 
again. No army contractors made fortunes. But the paper 
money went down, down, down until it fell to less than a cent 
upon the dollar. Patriotism cannot beat natural economic law. 

Mechanics Defeated Hunters. — The South could not get 
arms enough, heavy guns enough, railroad locomotives and 
cars enough, powder and ball enough, and ships enough to 



48o THE CONFEDERATE PRESIDENT 

fight well. A thousand of the Northern mechanics would 
build a bridge in first class style, but ten thousand Southerners 
could not repair the boiler of one burst locomotive. It is 
sometimes said that the marvel is how Davis kept Lee's army 
so long afield. The true marvel is that either Davis or Lee 
thought it worth while to try to keep the army afield so long. 

The first test came in 1861 and in 1862 when the South 
still had food, clothing, money, and blockade runners and 
nearly as many soldiers as the North ; and McClellan, by drill- 
ing his troops so imperturbably, held Johnston and Lee back. 
Once that the fighting Northern generals came in, with the 
far larger forces, while the South became poor and weaker; 
and fate was written plain to any man who could read its 
signs in the times. 

Davis Did Not Know the North. — Suppose that Lee had 
won at Gettysburg, — Grant would have been brought East 
by fast trains from Vicksburg, and Sherman with him. Nor 
had Philadelphia any desire to be sacked; an army of 50,000 
men would have sprung up right there, officered by veterans of 
1861 and 1862. Davis, with his favorite, Robert E. Lee, played 
the gambler's stake at the beginning; his pile of chips wasn't 
one-third that of the Northern leaders. 

It is an interesting reflection that if by sympathetic insight 
and the constructive imagination, Davis had known as much of 
the North as Lincoln knew of the South, neither Antietam nor 
Gettysburg would ever have been fought. And while the 
military man may greatly admire Lee as a field commander, a 
broader observation is not likely to consider that in displacing 
Joseph E. Johnston by Lee, Davis acted wisely. But we must 
not misjudge Lee as a soldier, — he never had the full swing 
and authority possessed by Grant. 

Davis and the Confederate Congress. — Bad as were 
the dissensions in the Union cause between Lincoln and the 
politicians in and out of Congress, those between Davis and 
the Confederate Congress were far worse, for three several 
and distinct reasons. First, Davis could not calm strife. His 
Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens, was always against 
him, a most unfortunate situation. Second, the Confederates 
were visibly losing, losing day by day, with but relatively few 
offsetting gains. Third, the army took nearly all the able men 
out of the Confederate Congress. 



JEFFERSON DAVIS 481 

Too Late. — In international affairs, Davis was always too 
late. He did indeed succeed in placing $15,000,000 of cotton 
bonds in Paris in 1862 ; but he needed $1,500,000,000 to match 
the North. His privateers and commerce destroyers nearly 
drove the Northern merchantmen from the high seas ; but they 
could not break the blockade of the Union fleet of nearly five 
hundred war-vessels. When the war was over, the South had 
$500,000,000 worth of stored cotton to sell ! In war, to be 
late is to perish. 

After the appalling Union disaster at Fredericksburg, in 
1862, Napoleon III of France offered to mediate between the 
two countries ; but the offer came too late, for Fredericksburg 
was fought by a fighting Northern general, Burnside, and 
the disaster simply nerved the army and the government to 
another fight. Mason and Slidell arrived in Europe too late.^ 
And then in the winter of 1864-5 Davis sent Duncan E. Ken- 
ner to England and France with the strange proposition, — 
independence with slavery abolished. Few believed even the 
statement. An independent nation could not be trusted to keep 
its promise long. The conference at Hampton Roads^ came 
too late, and Davis demanded too much. Only a month 
before, — January, 1865. — the Confederate Congress had pro- 
posed to make General Lee dictator, and Lee had declined. 
But Davis could not read the handwriting on the wall. 

The Miserable Fate to be Laughed at. — Even after Lee 
had surrendered and Johnston also, Davis fled southward and 
westward, hoping to join Smith and Magruder far across the 
Mississippi in Texas, He dreamed of a slave nation to include 
Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and the Indian 
Territory. This might soon grow by adding Missouri and 
Mississippi and — and — . But his last day dream ended in 
his arrest May 10, 1865, in Irwin County, Georgia. The news- 
papers said that he was disguised in women's petticoats. This 
story made him ridiculous. That it was false mattered noth- 
ing. He wore men's clothes, with a woman's cape over his 
shoulders not for disguise but because he had no umbrella 
and no man's overcoat, and it was raining. The tragedy 
ended in a country-wide guffaw! 

Becomes the Martyr of the Lost Cause. — They took 

*See p. 455, supra. *Se« p. 467, supra. 



482 THE CONFEDERATE PRESIDENT 

the old man to Fortress Monroe in Virginia and chained him 
in a dungeon-cell for two years. A Virginia grand jury- 
indicted him for treason. Charges were made that he helped 
the plot against Lincoln, Seward, and Grant.^ Finally, they 
tried him before the Federal Circuit Court. Chase, the Chief 
Justice, was for convicting him, but his colleague. Judge 
Underwood, disagreed. On December 25, 1868, the general 
amnesty, granted at last by Congress, caused the early release 
of all prisoners. Two months later, Davis went free. Revenge- 
ful treatment had made him the "Martyr of the Lost Cause" 
and the hero of the South. Soon, he went to Europe, where 
he long remained. 

In 1 88 1, Jefiferson Davis published a book entitled the "Rise 
and Fall of the Confederate Government." In 1890, he pub- 
lished another book, "Short History of the Confederate States 
of America." He died poor but famous, on December 6, 1889, 
at New Orleans, being eighty-one years of age. His wife and 
the younger of his two daughters, "Winnie," known as "the 
daughter of the Confederacy," having been born in Richmond 
in 1864, attained prominent positions in current letters. They 
died in 1906 and 1898, respectively. 

Soldiers Compared with Politicians. — Much of the 
story of the Confederacy will never be known. It was a gal- 
lant effort upon sound philosophy and political science for 
an immoral economic purpose. It meant at the time crystalliz- 
ing an outworn feudal system. But for the crimes of recon- 
struction, made possible by the murder of Abraham Lincoln, 
we of a later generation would have but little sympathy with 
the immediate purpose of the South. Reconstruction, however, 
showed that the North was in the control of men of wealth and 
men of revenge with private interests to serve, rather less 
respectable than slaveowning. 

The soldiers in gray and the soldiers in blue went home to 
work; but the politicians everywhere went on to loot. The 
North had grown in population, but the South had lost her 
best and was industrially ruined. She must then submit to 
yet worse ruin, to debauchery and to desecration. 

After 1865 begin the ugliest pages of American history. 

*See p. 469, supra. 



ANDREW JOHNSON 483 

CHAPTER XVni 

Andrew Johnson 

1865-1869 
1808-1875 

36-37 States Population 37,000,000 

Admitted: Nebraska. 

A War Democrat — the poor judgment of contemporaries — early life — 
never went to school — a tailor — at seventeen years married a girl of 
sixteen — wife an able woman — the social situation in Tennessee — a 
champion of the poor — member State Constitutional Convention- 
State Assemblyman — State Senator — opposed every kind of internal 
improvement — Representative in Congress — the "mechanic Governor" 
— proslavery — United States Senator — a Jeffersonian Democrat — only 
Southern member of Congress who did not resign and go with his 
State — "Military Governor" of Tennessee — the contradictory position 
of Congress — his character and political position — no attention ever 
paid seriously to the Presidential succession — held to the plans of 
Lincoln — unreconstructed rebels — vetoed Freedmen's Bureau, Civil 
Rights, and Fourteenth Amendment Acts, all passed over his vetoes — a 
campaigning tour — the Tenure of Office Act — the issue joined — im- 
peached for trying to remove Secretary Stanton — the leaders on each 
side — Johnson won by retaining one more than one-third in his favor 
— Senate saved the Presidency — Chief Justice Supreme — elected to 
Senate again — opposed Grant — Seward too prominent — the Congress 
that impeached Johnson guilty of reconstruction by force — the verdict 
of posterity. 

What is a War Democrat? — The seventeenth President 
of the United States was Andrew Johnson, who for six weeks 
had been Vice-President. He had been "Military Governor" 
of Tennessee, an office unknown aHke to our Constitution and 
to our Federal statutes, but created de facto by the "war- 
powers of the President."^ He was a War Democrat, mean- 
ing thereby a citizen who openly proclaimed that he practiced 
what he did not preach and preached against what he prac- 
ticed. So hard is it to adjust habitualized thinking to the 
emergencies of active need. 

A Painful Contrast. — He succeeded one who is now re- 
garded by many as the greatest of all Presidents. Merely to 
be so placed is in itself a high distinction. By a considerable 

^See p. 451, supra. 



484 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

majority of all who witnessed his daily life and political action, 
in contrast with Lincoln, Johnson was then regarded as the 
worst of all the Presidents to that date. Thereby to be so 
viewed is in itself of a kind of distinction. According to con- 
temporary evidence, the Vice-President was drunk beyond 
speech when the news of the assassination of Lincoln and 
Seward was told to him. Certainly between himself and Lin- 
coln, there was a blazing contrast; yet Lincoln was sponsor 
for him. 

On the Value of Contemporary Judgment. — The his- 
torical question, therefore, is whether in fact Andrew Johnson 
was the worst, or one of the worst, of the Presidents or even 
a bad President or perhaps after all a fairly good President. 
Candid and honest history does not take the say-so of near 
contemporaries about men. By a vote of 280 to 220, Socrates 
was condemned to drink the fatal hemlock, and by a vote of 
the learned and devout Sanhedrim and with the consent and 
upon the order of a supposedly impartial Roman governor, 
Jesus was sent to His crucifixion. Contemporaries are poor 
judges of one another. 

Early Life. — Andrew Johnson was born upon December 
29, 1808, at Raleigh, North Carolina. His father died when 
Andrew was but four years old, and when he was ten, his 
mother, who was poor, apprenticed him to a tailor. By study- 
ing at night without a teacher a book that contained British 
and American orations, the boy tried to learn to read, but he 
made slow headway. 

The Boy Marries a Girl. — In 1824, being fifteen years of 
age, he went to Laurens Court House, South Carolina, to 
work as a tailor. In 1826, he returned for a few months to 
Raleigh, but in a few months removed to Greeneville, Tennes- 
see, afterward his home for life.^ At this stage of affairs, 
the seventeen-year old youth married a girl sixteen years old, 
Eliza McCardle, who undertook to teach him the elementary 
branches thoroughly. She was a girl of small stature and frail 
physique, but of ability, of character, and of good breeding; 
and most of what was good in Andrew Jackson was due to his 
excellent wife. It should, however, be scored to his credit 
that he knew enough to marry her early. 

Spokesman of the Poor. — East Tennessee is a land of 
high mountains and of deep valleys. Consequently, the farms 

^See pp. 322, 380, supra. 



ANDREW JOHNSON 4S5 

are small and often remote from one another. West Tennessee 
is a land of rolling hills, of plains, and flat basins. Then it 
had great slave plantations. Between the poor of the Great 
Smoky and Cumberland Mountains and the rich of the Missis- 
sippi, the Cumberland and the Tennessee river valleys, ever 
since the day of the earliest settlements, there has been feud. 
Andrew Johnson soon became the spokesman of the East 
Tennessee farmers. 

Member State Constitutional Convention. — In 1828, 
the champion of the poor against the rich, before he came of 
age, Andrew Johnson was elected an alderman of the village 
of Greeneville. From 1830 to 1834, he was mayor of the vil- 
lage. He made his living at his trade. In 1834, he was sent 
as a delegate to the Tennessee State Constitutional Conven- 
tion, where he tried to get an article adopted by which only 
the whites should be counted in the representation of the dis- 
tricts in the State Legislature. Since the negroes could not 
vote, he was clearly right. ^ The State was actually gerry- 
mandered for the great slaveowners. This was a bold move 
for a poor young man ; and it made him famous. 

State Politician. — In 1835 Johnson was elected to a term 
in the State Legislature. In 1837 he was defeated. In 1839 
he ran again and was elected. In 1841 he was sent to the 
State Senate, serving until 1843. In these six years as Repre- 
sentative and Senator, Johnson opposed all internal improve- 
ments at State cost, — a narrow view, but one that brought him 
the support of the small taxpayers. 

A Straddler. — His political position was a peculiar straddle 
in that he admired and praised the Whig leaders but supported 
the Democratic candidates. He was a partisan for Jackson, 
Van Buren, and Polk, while enamored of the brilliant Clay 
and of the splendid Webster. This early inconsistency of his 
was perhaps due to his lack of fundamental education and 
school training; — he never went to school a day in his life, 
nor did he ever acquire even the office law training such as 
served Lincoln so well. His little wife was the only teacher 
that he had. 

The "Mechanic Governor."" — From 1843 to 18^3, John- 
son served as Representative in Congress. In 1853, he failed 
of reelection. But in that same year, rising out of defeat, 
he was elected governor; in 1855, he was reelected. He was 

^See pp. 27s, 276, supra. 



486 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

popularly known as "the mechanic governor" and worked hard 
for free education. In Congress, he had favored the annexa- 
tion of Texas and the Mexican War. On the slavery question, 
he took the extreme Southern view, — that the owner's rights 
extended through all the Territories.^ Yet he voted for the 
admission of California as a free State. He worked for the 
homestead law^ and for reduced tariffs, opposed internal 
improvements at national cost, and diligently labored for 
budget economics. He was a fairly consistent Jeffersonian 
Democrat in these affairs. He was one of the opponents of 
J. O. Adams and steadily voted not to receive antislavery 
petitions.^ On the Kansas-Nebraska bill, since he was out of 
Congress and governor of Tennessee, he did not vote; but 
his sympathies were against Douglas and with Pierce and Buch- 
anan. Later, when he was United States Senator, 1857 to 
1862, he was against Lincoln also in the Douglas-Lincoln 
debates. In this record of his middle career, he won among 
the illogical multitude the reputation of thinking for himself 
and of being something of a political philosopher rather than 
a partisan; he was also believed to be a true American and 
Democrat. 

In the United States Senate. — In i860, in the contest 
between Lincoln, Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell, he stood 
by Breckenridge and the Southern Democrats. But when Lin- 
coln was elected, he refused to join the secession movement. 
He was never a Calhoun Democrat. When his State seceded, 
he was the only member of Congress from the Confederate 
States who did not resign and "go with his State." This self- 
reliant action of his made him famous throughout both the 
North and the South ; and ultimately put him into the Presi- 
dency. Of necessity, it cost him the support of the Sotith and 
especially of the leading Tennessee politicians. Yet his own 
neighbors were with him in this position. 

Military Governor. — In March, 1862, Lincoln made 
Andrew Johnson military governor of that part of Tennessee 
which the Federals had won from the Confederacy. To do 
this, the President professed to invoke "the war-powers" of 
his office under the Constitution,* — and Congress supported 

^See p. 403, supra. *See pp. 317, 318, supra. 

^See p. 363, supra. *See Article II, Section 2. 



ANDREW JOHNSON 487 

him. With Taney still Chief Justice, this was legally a dan- 
gerous thing to do ; but the plan worked, which is the real con- 
cern whether in time of war or in time of peace. 

A military governor was an autocrat, and the peril of 
assassination was always present. But Johnson who profes- 
sionally was not "military" and constitutionally was not "gov- 
ernor" succeeded in reestablishing a Union government in 
Tennessee, following close upon the victories of Grant, Rose- 
crans, and Thomas. 

A Significant Admission. — In 1864, to secure the votes 
of the War Democrats and to please the Border States, John- 
son was picked to run with Lincoln. They lost Delaware, New 
Jersey, and Kentucky, but won Missouri and Maryland. 
Tennessee and Arkansas voted for Lincoln and Johnson; but 
Congress refused to count the votes, asserting that they and 
all other Southern States were "out of the Union" — had really 
seceded with success, a proposition utterly contradictory to the 
very nature of the Union cause. 

His Political Experience. — He had now held office for 
thirty-three years ; and was fifty-six years old. His experience 
as legislator and executive was long and varied; but it had 
been mainly at Nashville and at Washington, places in the 
same latitude, and in the region with a large proportion of 
colored persons. He had travelled and studied but little. A 
vigorous, intense, self-confident man, he had cut deep into life; 
but he had failed to cut wide. He had made a tremendous 
impression upon men, and yet was unidentified in statesman- 
like fashion with any public measure. Upon April 15, 1865, 
"Andy" Johnson, "the tailor-governor," became President. 

The Broken Health of Lincoln Disregarded. — This 
contingency should have been firmly fixed in the public mind. 
Harrison had died in office and Taylor, both men of immense 
natural vigor; and Jackson was always "near death" from 
chronic diseases. Polk had died in the June following his 
term. There was a myth afloat that Lincoln had almost super- 
human strength and endurance. But those who really knew 
the truth knew that his health was broken. 

Johnson Succeeds to the Presidency. — ^Johnson adopted 
the views of Abraham Lincoln respecting the ex-Confederates 
and reconstruction. This was a maddening surprise to Thad- 
deus Stevens and to the other radical Republicans in Con- 



488 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

gress. Johnson retained the Cabinet of Lincoln, including 
Stanton;^ such a course is a serious error in any President 
In the summer recess of Congress, Johnson set up provisional 
governments in every one of the defeated States except Texas; 
and all were now applying for recognition or readmission as 
States in the Union. But nearly all the new Senators and 
Congressmen, it was seen, would be Democrats and ex-Con- 
federates, — that is, according to the Northern radicals, unre- 
constructed, sullen, beaten rebels. The Northern Republicans 
feared that they would saddle the Confederate war-debts upon 
the United States and delay the industrial conquest of the 
South by the Northern capitalists. They meant to punish the 
rebels ; but Johnson, like Lincoln, said in effect, "Let the dead 
past bury its dead." And the radicals intended to give votes 
to the freedman; this was the crux dijficultatis, the rock 
of offence. 

The Political Breakdown. — In February, 1866, the war- 
fare between Johnson and the Republican leaders in Congress 
began in the refusal to admit the newly elected members from 
the South. During 1866, Congress passed and the President 
vetoed, and then Congress passed by two-thirds vote over his 
vetoes many measures, including the Freedmen's Bureau Act, 
— at once a wonderful philanthropy to the negro and a vicious 
graft-scheme for the Northern white — the Civil Rights Act, 
and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Then, 
in the summer and fall of the year, the President went on a 
campaigning tour in the North, hoping to defeat some of his 
Congressional enemies; but was beaten. No other President 
had ever before thrown himself openly into the political battle, 
though several have done it since. Early in 1867, Congress 
disfranchised the ex-Confederate leaders and enfranchised the 
freedmen. Upon March 2, 1867, over the President's veto. 
Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, which virtually 
prohibited the President from dismissing any officer appointed 
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate;^ and also 
at this time in an army appropriation act reduced the President 
to a subordinate both of the Senate and of the lieutenant-gen- 
eral of the army. The President now had to join issue with 
Congress. 

^See pp. 453, supra. 'See p. 152, supra. 



ANDREW JOHNSON 489 

Stanton Deserved Removal. — Defying the~ Tenure"^of 
Office Act, Johnson attempted to remove Secretary of War 
Stanton, who sneered at his chief and flouted his authority, 
and to put Lorenzo Thomas in his place. 

The Admission of Nebraska. — In 1867, over the veto of 
President Johnson, Nebraska was admitted into the Union. 
Her vote to adopt a Constitution had but 100 majority. The 
veto of Johnson was based partly upon this division of public 
sentiment, partly upon a proposed limitation of the suffrage 
to whites, and partly upon disgust with the whole history of 
the Kansas-Nebraska region. Congress forced the State to 
amend its Constitution so that the negroes might vote. Thereby, 
the Republican party safely gained two Senators. 

The Purchase of Alaska. — In October, 1867, there was 
completed the purchase of Alaska for which more than a 
dozen years before the negotiations had been begun by Presi- 
dent Buchanan. By many circumstances and conditions, 
Russia was greatly embarrassed in America and was glad 
to sell out for $7,200,000. The area is twice that of 
Texas and the wealth incredible. Alaska has already yielded 
products valued at over $400,000,000 to this country and to 
our people. The purchase was then called by many "Seward's 
folly;" but Seward was scarcely more its advocate than John- 
son or a dozen other men. Politically, the purchase was as 
wise as it has proven financially. No war or intrigue or ques- 
tionable ultimate aim stains its acquisition by our govern- 
ment. This and the new Bureau of Education are two of 
the few bright spots in this dark picture. 

Johnson Impeached by Scoundrels. — From February to 
May, 1868, the country was shaken with the impeachment 
trial of the President upon eleven counts, — of which the gist 
was (i) violation of the Tenure of Office Act, (2) saying 
that it was unconstitutional, (3) declining to follow the 
strange procedure indicated in the appropriation bill, and (4) 
"the high misdemeanor in office" of taking part in the cam- 
paign of 1868. Those who moved the impeachment counted 
upon the two-thirds by which they had steadily overcome the 
vetoes of Johnson. They planned to make some man of their 
own choice — probably Grant or Wade — President. The lead- 
ing prosecutors were Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin F. 
Butler. This was the Stevens, reputed a bachelor, who by his 



490 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

brilliant eloquence and dogged persistence gave to dull and 
callous Pennsylvania her public school system, and who then 
came to Congress, schemed for political rich men, and hounded 
Lincoln. As for Benjamin F. Butler, he lived in a river of 
hate and was himself a fountain of that brine. 

Yet abler men were the President's attorneys, — among them 
William M. Evarts, cold and perfect as a Greek statue, and 
that Benjamin R. Curtis, who as Associate Justice of the 
United States Supreme Court, had given a dissenting opinion 
in the Dred Scott case and had then resigned from a court 
that he could no longer respect. It was a trial at times frigid, 
at times frantic, the most terrible in American history. The 
Senate repeatedly reversed the rulings of the Chief Justice, who 
presided with dignity and wisdom. We owe him to Abraham 
Lincoln. 

On May i6, the first vote was taken. It stood 35 against 
Johnson, 19 for him. Necessary to oust him 36. Of the 19 
for Johnson, 12 were Democrats, 7 were Republicans. The 
House had voted to impeach by 125 yeas to 40 nays, over 
three- fourths. 

Acquitted. — The requisite minority of the Senate had 
saved the Presidency. 

The Chief Justice had proven the foundation of American 
constitutional government. 

Ten days later, two more votes were taken, and the result 
was confirmed. 

Those who do not believe in the Senate and a bicameral 
legislature, those who do not believe in democracy under 
the constitutional guarantees of freedom, those who advocate 
recall by majority do well to pause here and consider.^ 

The Republicans who had voted for acquittal included Wil- 
liam Pitt Fessenden of Maine, who had succeeded Chase as 
Secretary of War in the Cabinet of Lincoln; and Reverdy 
Johnson of Maryland, who had been Attorney-General in the 
Cabinet of Zachary Taylor. 

The Constitutional Meaning. — The decision was a sur- 
prise to the country as well as to the Republican radicals. The 
trial settled many other matters, — for one, that upon impeach- 
ment proceedings, the Chief Justice sits as a judge, not as z 
moderator. As his decisions in law are not then reviewable in 
any court, he becomes indisputably the highest officer of the 

^See p. 122, supra. 



.'ANDREW JOHNSON 491 

American government. The Constitution in no way provides 
for his impeachment or recall or reduction. For another, the 
trial established the impeachment of a President as a legal, not 
a political, proceeding. 

In 1869, Andrew Johnson, having made no other trouble, — 
though Thaddeus Stevens later introduced a futile bill with 
five more impeachment charges, — retired from the Presidency 
but not from politics. 

The Cabinet History of Andrew Johnson. — This Vice- 
President, who became President through the murder of his 
chief, never had a free hand with his Cabinet, not even after 
the impeachment failed. His official household was as follows : 

State, — Williams H. Seward of New York. 

Treasury, — Hugh McCulloch of Indiana. 

War, — Edwin M. Stanton of Ohio, two years ; U. S. Grant 
and Lorenzo Thomas, ad interim; John M. Schofield of New 
York, nine months. 

Attorney-General, — ^James Speed of Kentucky, over one 
year; Henry Stanbery of Ohio, nearly two years; William M. 
Evarts of New York, nearly one year. 

Postmaster-General, — William Dennison of Ohio, one year; 
Alexander W. Randall of Wisconsin, ad interim, three years. 

Navy, — Gideon Welles of Connecticut. 

Interior, — John P. Usher of Indiana, one month; James 
Harlan of Iowa, over one year; Orville H. Browning of 
Illinois, toward three years. 

Senator Again. — Being an habitual office-holder, Johnson 
tried again and again as a non-partisan to be elected United 
States Senator, and at last was elected in 1875. He made but 
one speech, in which he criticised the course of President Grant 
in his policy toward the South; in this, he was right. On 
July 31, of the same year, he died of paralysis at Carter's 
Station, Tennessee. He left property valued at some $40,000 
to his widow and large family of sons, daughters and grand- 
children. Next year, the frail widow and mother of his three 
sons and two daughters passed away. In extenuation of his 
errors of tact, it is often urged that the opponents of Andrew 
Johnson used far worse language against him and did meaner 
things, — which was true; that as President he had unusual 
domestic cares, which also was true; that he forced an issue 



492 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

that sooner or later had to be tried out, — 'Tt must needs be 
that offences come, but woe unto him by whom they come." 

Too Much Seward. — In a democracy, a statesman should 
be in part a politician and in the whole a gentleman. The 
chief adviser of Johnson was William H. Seward, — statesman 
and gentleman but scarcely a successful politician. Unfor- 
tunately, Johnson who was neither politician on a national 
scale nor gentleman and not much of a statesman, took too 
much advice from Seward, who was abler than he. It takes 
equal ability to carry out the advice of a man of ability. 

The Orgy of Reconstruction Begun. — The important 
thing to record and to remember of Andrew Johnson is that 
under the Congress which sought by many devices to shear 
the Presidency of all its real powers, — even the constitutional 
power to appoint judges, — by providing that no vacancies 
should be filled until 1869, — and likewise the Supreme Court^ 
was begun that orgy of reconstruction which more disgraces 
the pages of American history than anything else. Revenge 
could go no further than planning to make the South pay for 
the war-raids into Maryland and Pennsylvania and actually 
putting illiterate and brutal negroes into governorships and 
wrecking the remaining social structure of honesty and de- 
cency. 

Johnson was grievously wronged by worse men than him- 
self. 



CHAPTER XIX 

(Hiram) Ulysses [Simpson] Grant 

1869-1877 
1822-1885 

37-38 States 1870 — Population 38,558,371 

Admitted : Colorado, "the Centennial State." 

Taken at his best — early life — educated at West Point — name changed 
by mistake but fortunately — captain in Mexican War — marries — 
resigns from army — farming and real estate — clerk in father's store — 
apparently a failure — Colonel Illinois Volunteers — Brigadier-General 
— wins Donelson and Henry — "Unconditional Surrender" Grant — 
surprised at Corinth — loses first campaign against Vicksburg — Lin- 
coln desires to know "Grant's brand of whiskey" — captures Vicks- 

^See p. 84, supra. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 493 

burg — compared with Meade — military events — "The man has come" 
— Sherman in the Lower South — the battle of the Wilderness — ^the 
raid on Washington — the Petersburg mine — Nashville — Lee's sur- 
render — our greatest war-hero — tours the country with Johnson — 
President — the rights of the South — the Ku Klux Klan — corruption 
of the National Government — the Fifteenth Amendment — the "Ala- 
bama" case — Santo Domingo — talks of impreachment — the Amnesty 
Act — Civil Service Act^nepotism — strange prosperity — his reelection 
— the Liberal Republicans and Democrats nominate Greeley — apostle 
of the emancipation of labor-force ignorance — victim of American 
politics — the "Inflation Bill" — suffrage taken from the District of 
Columbia — "Star Route" frauds — Grant tours the world, first of 
American ex-Presidents to do so — seeks third term — failure of bank- 
ing firm of Grant and Ward — "Memoirs" — heroic death — disliked 
controversy — made war on war — imperturbable — estimate of char- 
acter and intelligence — public office not a private opportunity — or to 
help or honor anyone. 

Taken at His Best. — To this generation, General Grant 
comes down as an attractive and yet impressive figure, — in his 
silence, in his military efficiency, in his friendliness, in his 
clean living, and in his fortitude and heroism upon battlefield 
and the bed of death. We take him at his best, which was 
indeed good. For the rest, not wholly forgiving the men of 
his own generation for the crime of making him President, — 
a crime against himself as well as against themselves and 
against their heirs, — we wholly forgive him for his own errors. 

Early Life; West Point Graduate. — Hiram Ulysses 
Grant was born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 2^, 1822. 
His paternal ancestry is traced to Matthew Grant, a Scotch- 
man, who settled at Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1630. Not 
many Presidents could trace their lineage accurately as far 
back as that in either the old world or the new. His father 
was Jesse R. Grant, a farmer, who named this son Hiram 
Ulysses and let him have an ordinary rural free public school- 
ing. When Ulysses was seventeen years old, the Congressman 
of the district named him for West Point. This political friend 
thought that Ulysses was the boy's first name and as hia 
mother's maiden name was Simpson, sent in the appellation as 
Ulysses Simpson. Upon reflection, the family decided to let 
the new name stand. It served him well in its initials as U. S. 
Grant, United States Grant, or Unconditional Surrender 



494 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Grant, When he was President, however, and his administra- 
tion was charged with corruption, his opponents wrote it 
$ Grant, — Dollars Grant. Of such trifles is popular fame not 
made perhaps but ornamented or illuminated. To be popular, 
get a right name or nickname, — "Old Hickory," "Old Rough 
and Ready," "Honest Abe," "U. S.," "Teddy," will serve.^ 

The Mexican War. — At West Point, the sturdy farm boy 
made only a fair record, his best performance being in mache- 
matics. He was especially proficient in horsemanship, in which 
he took great delight. He was graduated in 1843, with the 
usual brevet of second lieutenant. He served throughout the 
campaigns both of General Taylor and of General Scott, tak- 
ing part in many battles, — among them Palo Alto at the very 
beginning, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Vera Cruz, Cerro 
Gordo, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec. Twice 
he was breveted for gallantry in action; and he came home 
from Mexico a captain, with a fine record as a soldier in the 
field. 

Marriage. — In August, 1848, being now twenty-six years 
old. Captain Grant took to himself a wife, Julia T. Dent, four 
years his junior, of an excellent family but no means. For 
the next six years, he served in Oregon and in California, but 
resigned in 1854. There had been charges of intemperance 
against the young officer. It was a common failing ; and is yet 
in the regular army service. For the next six years, he lived 
in or near St. Louis, engaging rather unsuccessfully in farm- 
ing and in real estate operations. 

Clerk in a Store. — By this time, his father had moved to 
Galena, Illinois, and had become a dealer in leather and its 
products. Ulysses now took his family to the paternal home 
and became a clerk in the store at fifteen dollars a week. He 
was, in short, a failure, — a broken, disappointed, futureless 
man, a store clerk and ex-army ofiicer. His parents and his 
neighbors were sorry for him. "Going to West Point" evi- 
dently ruined a good boy, — so they thought. 

Brigadier-General of Volunteers. — A year later, the 
Civil War broke out. At once U. S. Grant issued forth from 
that leather store, for he had heard the call to arms. Memories 
of Molino del Rey and of Chapultepec sounded In his ears. 
The Governor of the State of Illinois made him Colonel of the 
2 1 St Illinois Volunteers. Grant worked so diligently that he 

^See p. S3< supra. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 495 

was soon made brigadier-general. The door of opportunity 
was wide open, and he had rushed in. On his own respon- 
sibility, he seized Paducah at the confluence of the Tennessee 
and Ohio rivers upon the Kentucky side. This was an ex- 
ample of that large strategy in which Grant excelled every 
other general on either side. This energetic move, made Sep- 
tember 6, 1 861, gave him fame. It was the thin edge of the 
wedge by which the Confederacy was to be split in twain. On 
November 7, 1861, at Belmont, in Missouri, he fought his 
first battle as a commander and won. It was little more than a 
daring reconnaissance of a Confederate fort at Columbus, on 
the Mississippi, but following several Union disasters, it greatly 
encouraged the Unionists in Kentucky and Missouri. 

"Unconditional Surrender" Grant. — The year 1862 
opened up in the most serious style. General Albert Sidney 
Johnston held a strong Confederate line, including Bowling 
Green, Lexington, Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, Fort 
Henry on the Tennessee, and Columbus. He had small com- 
mands under able generals in eastern Kentucky. General John- 
ston was nearly sixty years old ; had seen long military service 
in Texas, Mexico, California, and against the Indians and 
the Mormons ; and was considered the ablest soldier on either 
side. But Grant was undismayed; and under the orders of 
his superior. General Buell, a careful soldier, and supported 
by the gunboats of Flag-Officer A. H. Foote, he made for the 
river forts. 

On February 6, Fort Henry was easily taken. Then Grant 
marched overland and assaulted Donelson. General Pillow 
made a sortie, with the result that the Union forces won a 
lodgment inside the fort. On the i6th the garrison of 15,000 
men surrendered. It was their answer to the famous reply of 
Grant when an armistice was asked, — 

"No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender 
can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your 
works. 

"I am sir: very respectfully 

"Your obt. svt. 

"U. S. Grant, 

"Brig. Gen." 



496 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

"U. S. Grant, Unconditional Surrender Grant," he became 
and remained thereafter to the "Boys in Blue" and will re- 
main to them till the last veterans of the Grand Army of the 
Republic are laid in their final rest. It was a glaring contrast 
to the drilling, drilling by McClellan in Virginia. The armies 
of the West marched forward. Their drill was to march and 
to fight. At one time, being chased by Confederates, only his 
horsemanship saved him, — under fire, he rode his horse down 
a bluff and along a plank not a foot wide to a steamboat in 
motion in the Mississippi. On the 6th of April, Grant, now a 
major-general, following several days under arrest because of 
the disfavor of the new commander, H. W. Halleck, was at 
Corinth with 45,000 men and Buell was two marches distant 
with 37,000 men. Here Johnston and Beauregard completely 
surprised Grant. A battle of terrible fury, known variously 
as Pittsburg Landing and Shiloh, one of the worst of the 
war, was fought, but on the first day Grant barely held his 
ground on the banks of the river. There were enormous losses 
on both sides, Johnston being killed. The Confederates had 
already lost Zollicoffer, a brilliant general, in Kentucky. Next 
day, disheartened by this second calamity to a leader, when 
Buell rushed in with his reserves, Beauregard retreated. By 
June 6, he had evacuated both Corinth and Memphis. 

Intrigues. — Now followed a dark period of political wire- 
pullings and consequent changes of commanders. Grant was 
forced into the background for a while. There were more 
tales of drunkenness. At any rate. Grant was tender-hearted ; 
at Shiloh he gave up his tent to army surgeons who were 
operating on wounded men and stayed out all night in the icy 
rain. 

In the late fall and early winter of 1862, the first campaign 
against Vicksburg failed. For the failure, there were several 
reasons. The Confederates knew the rivers, bayous and 
swamps well; the Federals were learning them. There was 
intrigue for place among the Federal commanders, in which 
Grant took no part, but from which he suffered. The poli- 
ticians tried to get Lincoln to put Grant out of the service ; it 
was the time when Lincoln is reported to have asked what 
kind of whiskey Grant drank, asserting that he would like to 
send a barrel to each of his other generals.^ 

The Siege of Vicksburg. — In April as spring opened up, 

*See p. 460, supra. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 497 

General Grant, Captain Porter, and Admiral Farragut set 
themselves to win Vicksburg by a new plan of campaign. Mili- 
tary critics have called it "strange," "bizarre," "accidental in 
outcome." It was in truth a fine example of complex strategy. 
Grant proposed to march his army into Arkansas, then south 
past Vicksburg, when ten miles below it to cross the Mississippi 
river, to proceed east and take the city of Jackson, — thereby 
cutting off Confederate reinforcements from reserves, — then 
to turn northwest and to assault and besiege the "impregnable" 
city. Porter ran his gunboats down the river past Vicksburg 
and Farragut came up the river from New Orleans; and the 
two fleets then transported the veterans of Grant across the 
wide Mississippi. There were weeks and months of march- 
ing; at times for a week, Grant was cut off from his supplies. 
In three assaults, he was defeated, but at last, upon July 4, 
1863, he had starved General J. C. Pemberton into surrender. 
In this campaign, he took in all over 42,000 Confederate pris- 
oners, but lost 24,000 men, whose bodies are buried (mostly 
in nameless graves) in the National Park at Vicksburg. The 
Confederates had lost half as many. 

Major-General U. S. A. — Vicksburg was a campaign, — 
Gettysburg a battle. Grant cleaned up his victory. Meade did 
not. McClellan and Meade were afraid of Lee; Grant was 
not afraid of anyone. Vicksburg was a finality. In a few 
days, the last little fort on the Mississippi fell, and Abraham 
Lincoln could say of the river that he knew and loved, — "The 
Father of Waters flows unvexed to the sea." St. Louis 
was an open port again, and most of the Mississippi valley 
was able to resume trade. Grant's had become a household 
name from Pittsburg to Denver. It meant not only military 
glory but also high prices and prosperity. 

Lincoln now raised him to be major-general in the regular 
army. On September 19 and 20, the desperate battle of Chicka- 
mauga was fought, in which Bragg and Longstreet drove in 
the center and the right flank of the Union forces under Rose- 
crans, but Thomas by holding the left flank won the sobriquet, 
"the Rock of Chickamauga." Grant was given supreme com- 
mand in the West and received reinforcements under Hooker 
from the Army of the Potomac. The loser at Chancellorsville 
soon defeated Longstreet at Wauhatchie. 

More Union Victories. — Then the Union forces joined 



498 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

and attacked Bragg at Chattanooga on November 23, 24 and 
25. On the right flank, Hooker and his men won the extra- 
ordinary "battle of the clouds" on Lookout Mountain; the 
drill of McClellan was telling with fatal effect against the less 
disciplined Confederate soldiers of the West. Soon after- 
wards, Burnside defeated Longstreet at Knoxville. 

Head of the Army. — -The rest of the story of Ulysses S. 
Grant as a commander is the whole story of the winding up 
of the Interstate War. On March 9, 1864, he was made 
Lieutenant-General and General-in-chief. President Lincoln, 
Secretary Stanton, and the former chief, General Halleck, 
with the politicians, stood aside. Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, 
and Chattanooga had written "The man has come" upon the 
face of the war. 

Grant placed William Tecumseh Sherman in command in 
the West and kept George Gordon Meade in command in Vir- 
ginia, moving his own headquarters there. 

The Confederates also changed commanders. Jefferson 
Davis, who hated Joseph E. Johnston, was forced to put him 
in command, superseding Bragg. Early in 1864, Sherman 
wiped out all the railroads at Meridian, Mississippi, and de- 
stroyed the town, cutting off prospective Confederate supplies 
for the summer of that year. 

Grant as Strategist. — First, Grant would "hammer" Lee 
in Virginia, and wear him out by "attrition." Second, Sher- 
man was to chase Johnston and to ravel him into rags and 
threads. Third, Lee was to be kept so busy that he could not 
reinforce Johnston, and Johnston so busy that he could not 
reinforce Lee. For this hammering and chasing. Grant had 
700,000 men in the field. And Lincoln had in sight somewhat 
over $1,000,000,000 for the campaign of 1864. The Con- 
federates had scarcely 300,000 men, including their negro 
slaves, and no real money. Their sole advantages consisted in 
holding the inner lines and in having the active sympathy of 
the local population. Southern patriotism was never higher 
than in 1864, ^^^ the Confederacy still hoped to win. 

In May the Confederates drove the Federals out of the 
Shenandoah valley. 

Hammering. — In May also was fought with immense losses 
on both sides the Battle of the Wilderness, — 6th and 7th. After 
the battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, by which on the Qth 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 499 

and loth Grant vainly tried to get between Lee and the city 
of Richmond, he telegraphed to Lincoln, at Washington, "I 
propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer." It 
was to take yet longer. At Cold Harbor, he lost 12,000 men 
uselessly, so far as the assault itself was concerned. The total 
loss of Grant was already 72,000, more than half of his force. 
But Lee had begun with only 65,000 soldiers, and already 
ninety per cent, of Southerners from sixteen to sixty years of 
age were under arms, while enlistments were going on at the 
North. Grant now undertook the capture of Petersburg by 
siege. It still received supplies by the Richmond and Danville 
railroad. 

In June General Lee sent Early with 1 7,000 men on a raid. 
He nearly won Washington.^ Foiled there, Early pushed on 
to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, demanding there $100,000 
in gold or $500,000 in greenbacks from the citizens. Not get- 
ting the money, he burned the town, leaving 3,000 non-com- 
batants homeless.^ 

Driving On. — In July General Grant exploded a tremen- 
dous mine at Petersburg. His sappers and miners worked 
underground for weeks to prepare it. The explosion killed 
only half a thousand Confederates. Into the crater went 4,000 
Union soldiers, all of whom being surrounded were either 
killed or captured. Grant himself called the elaborate enter- 
prise "a stupendous failure." He was not good in details. 
But still he clung there at Petersburg. 

In the South Sherman with over 100,000 men was steadily 
driving Johnston before him, — from Dalton, to Resaca, to 
Allatoona, — to which last-named place he telegraphed, "Hold 
the fort, for I am coming," — to Dallas, to Kenesaw Mountain, 
to the Chattahoochee river. With but 50,000 men, Johnston 
could not stand before him. Early in the war. General Joseph 
E. Johnston had been badly wounded, and for a year had been 
unable to serve. He had always been a cautious man. Now 
he became more cautious than ever. 

In September and October, by sending Sheridan with 26,000 
men to destroy the villages and farms of the Shenandoah 
valley. General Grant more than retaliated upon the Confed- 
erates for the raid of Early into Pennsylvania. The success 

*See p. 464, supra. *See p. 465, supra. 



500 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

of this Union raid deprived both the Confederate Government 
and Capital and the Confederate Army of most of their food 
suppHes. 

President Davis now replaced Johnston with Hood, who 
set out to move the war back into Tennessee. He crossed from 
Georgia through Alabama into upper Mississippi and encoun- 
tered Thomas and Schofield who overthrew him at Nashville, 
Tennessee, in the most crushing defeat of the War. 

Sherman's March. — Upon February i, 1865, General 
W. T. Sherman, who had marched from Atlanta to Savannah, 
began his northward campaign to Richmond, taking the Caro- 
lina cities as he went. He was cutting the heart out of the 
Confederacy. 

Upon April i, 1865, General Phil Sheridan took 6,000 pris- 
oners at Five Forks, twelve miles southwest of Petersburg, 
and cut off the last source of supplies to Lee. Next day Lee 
moved out of Petersburg. A few days later, hoping to escape 
southward, he met Sheridan across his path. He could have 
whipped Sheridan, for he had more men, his finest veterans. 
Davis had made an error in forwarding supplies; but they 
were used to going without food. 

The Surrender. — Lee might have joined Johnston ; but — 
was it wholly fear of starvation ? — did he relish the idea of a 
group consisting of himself, Johnston, Hood, and Davis fight- 
ing in the Carolina mountains through another winter? At 
any rate, he preferred to throw himself upon the mercy of the 
Union General, and on the 9th of April at Appomattox Court- 
house surrendered his 29,000 men. General Grant left to the 
Confederates their horses to work their "little farms" and 
their side-arms for personal protection and for honor's sake. 
To each man he furnished a day's ration of food; whereupon, 
the valiant Army of Northern Virginia vanished like a morn- 
ing cloud before the sun. 

On the 26th Johnston surrendered to Sherman near Raleigh, 
North Carolina. In May General Kirby Smith and Colonel 
Richard Taylor (son of Zachary Taylor^) fired the last shots 
of the war in Texas, where they had resolutely held their 
ground after the Vicksburg campaign, and surrendered. It 
was a strange prominence for the son of "Old Rough and 
Ready." 

An Inevitable President. — It was the aim of the mem- 

*Sec pp. 207, 398, supra. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 5dt 

bers of the Constitutional Convention that the President of 
the people of the United States should be the first citizen of 
the land; they intended that the man of greatest influence 
should become also the officer of greatest power. Washington, 
whatever his real merits, had been such a President; and Jef- 
ferson, Madison, Jackson, and Taylor had followed measure- 
ably well. Others had not fallen far below this ideal. Lincoln 
became such a President but only after his reelection in 1864. 
After Appomattox, only the loyal heart of U. S. Grant saved 
to him that honor. Lincoln admired Grant, and the younger 
man, whom no created thing save whiskey ever dazed, held 
the President in the esteem, gratitude, and reverence that he 
deserved so richly from his favorite general. Such, however, 
is the delight of the multitude in war-heroes that this man who 
had commanded late in 1864 ^i^d early in 1865 a million sol- 
diers and at last had defeated the hitherto unconquerable Lee 
might have cast a shadow even upon Abraham Lincoln. Once 
that the war was over, every intelligent observer of the times, 
every discerning reader of past history knew that as soon as 
the term of Andrew Johnson expired General Grant would be 
President. Not that Grant was either fit by nature or fitted by 
experience for the Presidency, but the Republic had no other 
way to show him signal honor before the nations.^ 

The story of Grant as a general must be fairly well under- 
stood else the story of Grant as President will be wholly mis- 
understood. He was the people's darling;^ and might do and 
did do as he pleased. Many Southerners liked him, for he 
had been kind to Robert E, Lee, their own popular idol. Quite 
as well as anyone else, Grant himself foresaw that he would 
be chosen President in 1868, and he governed himself accord- 
ingly, not with selfish ambition but as by fate. Ulysses S. 
Grant never was a self-seeker. He was in no sense inclined, 
however, to self-abnegation. At worst, he was self-indulgent. 

The Rights of the South. — When Johnson proposed to 
try Lee and others for treason. Grant intervened, and said that 
the terms of the surrender at Appomattox must be kept in 
letter and spirit. He said indeed that he would resign as gen- 
eral of the army, — which supreme rank had been created for 
him in July, 1866, — in case the agreement were not kerjt. 

*Se« p. 327, supra. 'Sea p. 343, supri. 



502 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Loyal to the President. — When Johnson suspended Stan- 
ton and appointed Grant in his place for a brief time as Sec- 
retary of War, the General of the army protested. Only a 
strictly military habit of mind caused him to obey. It was the 
same spirit of military obedience that had caused him and Ad- 
miral Farragut in 1866 to tour the country with Johnson and 
Seward. This tour did, however, considerably increase the 
probability that Grant would be President. The people liked 
the contrast between the silent soldier and the talkative tailor.^ 

Overwhelming Victory at the Polls. — On May 20, 
1868, at the Republican National Convention, upon the first 
ballot. Grant was unanimously nominated for the Presidency. 
The Democratic party was hopelessly lost in its efforts to find 
a man to beat Grant. The thing was impossible. Grant was 
easily the most popular and the most influential man in this 
democratic country of ours. But the Democratic party made 
a very poor choice in naming Horatio Se5aTiour, lately gov- 
ernor of New York, as its candidate.^ Seymour had been not 
only a peace-at-any-price man, anti-Lincoln and pro-Vallan- 
digham, all his life a politician and office-candidate, but he 
had actually proposed early in 1861 that New York State 
should support the Southern Confederacy, even join it. He 
was a Copperhead of the Copperheads. The result was that 
Grant received 214 electoral votes, Seymour 80. The Re- 
publican Vice-Presidential candidate was Schuyler Colfax of 
Indiana, long a member of Congress and for some time Speaker 
of the House, a man of excellent ability, quite above the ordi- 
nary run of Vice-Presidents, and of a reputation for honesty 
rather below most Vice-Presidents. His opponent had been 
General F. P. Blair, Jr., one of Sherman's corps commanders, 
a Kentuckian who had migrated to Missouri. He was one 
of those Blair brothers of whom Lincoln thought so highly. 
Politics had given to him a strange bedfellow. 

The South Resists. — Grant, who always objected to 
"political generals," but was now himself a "military Presi- 
dent," inherited a situation in respect to which he had no 
adequate policy. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amend- 

*See p. 488, supra. 

"See p. 462, supra. In the popular vote Grant polled 3,012,833; Seymour 
2,703,249. Colfax hurt the Republican ticket. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 503, 

ments to the Constitution and the various Acts of Congress 
during the administration of Andrew Johnson had put the 
white South at the mercy of its own negro freedmen and of 
Northern carpetbaggers. And the white South, which had 
lost in the War nearly half a million of its best men, was 
gathering its forces to reduce the freedmen to lower place and 
to drive out the carpetbaggers. The South had three motives. 
Of these, the first was race-hatred as ancient as humanity 
itself, but quiescent in the days of slavery. The second was 
sectional hatred, for the Interstate War had left the North 
superior to the South, an offence in itself almost unforgivable 
but certainly unforgivable in view of the hideous and damning 
facts of reconstruction. Domination of a people by representa- 
tives of another section of the same people never was agreeable. 
The third motive was plain justice, — the desire for economy 
in administration, for honesty, for reasonable taxes and expen- 
ditures. 

The South was resisting oppression, corruption, extrava- 
gance and social wrongs. The Ku Klux Klan was the logical 
outcome of an intolerable social and political situation. 

The Opportunity for Corruption. — Another serious 
feature of the governmental condition under President Grant 
was the corruption of the National Government itself. The 
tremendous expenditures of the Civil War stand out in these 
figures : 

1860-61 1864-65 1865-66 

Revenues $41,345,000 $ 329,568,000 $ 558,033,000 

Payments .... 66,357,000 1,290,313,000 520,751,000 

National debt. . 90,867,000 2,682,592,000 2,772,712,000 

By 1866 the annual interest alone upon the national debt was 
$133,068,000, being over three times the total national rev- 
enues of 1 86 1. The War had cost, all told, at least $8,000,- 
000,000 in cash, in debt, and in loss, — being one-third of all 
our national wealth. It is astounding, appalling to contem- 
plate. 

Corruption Defiant. — In the administration of Lincoln, 
the two- departments most to be watched for corruption, — 
Treasury and War, — were headed by men who were incorrup- 
tible and implacably hostile to corruption, the former by 
Salmon P. Chase, succeeded in 1864 ^y William P. Fessenden, 



504 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

and the latter by Edwin M. Stanton. Nevertheless, corrup- 
tion had stalked in, and by 1869 when Grant became President, 
was so powerful as to be defiant. 

Two Corrupt Deals. — Two illustrations of corruption will 
suffice, — Grant had himself seen the robbery of the Depart- 
ment of Missouri under Fremont by the supply of worthless 
rifles that exploded, blowing off the right forefingers of some 
hundreds of men. They cost $77,000 for about 4,000 of 
them, and yet because they were legally contracted for, the 
Supreme Court itself ordered the bill paid despite proof that 
the contractors themselves paid $2.75 each for arms that they 
sold to the Government at ten times as much. It is singularly 
interesting to know that what is now a multimillionaire bank- 
ing firm in the East has as its chief partner one of those army 
contractors. A second incident occurred in Grant's own ad- 
ministration. The United States Government, contrary to 
neutrality laws, sold to a lawyer at Ilion, N. Y., an immense 
number of guns and rounds of ammunition from its own 
arsenals, in 1870, for $4,000,000; which merchandise that 
lawyer immediately transhipped to France for its use against 
Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War, receiving a price under- 
stood to be above $20,000,000. Every one believed that the 
profits were divided between bankers and the army ring. 

The Freedmen Enfranchised. — On March 30, 1870, the 
Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted. It^ 
provided that, throughout the United States, the suffrage 
should not be restricted on account of race or color or previous 
condition of servitude. It was distinctly aimed at the denial 
by the white South to the negroes of their equal rights. The 
ballot, to use the phrase so often in the mouth of Thaddeus 
Stevens, is "the muniment of freedom," the protection of the 
citizen against oppression. Without the ballot, the freedman 
was doomed to return to a condition scarcely less onerous and 
servile than slavery itself. A large part of the political history 
of the South since 1870 has been the defeat of this Fifteenth 
Amendment. This has been accomplished in part by threats^ 
and violence against negroes seeking to vote, and in part by, 
educational and property qualifications with exemption to^ 
those whose grandfathers were voters. Since the grandfathers 
of the whites did vote and those of the freedmen, duly born in' 
wedlock, did not vote, and proofs are wanting in the cases of 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 505 

freedmen whose white grandfathers did vote, these laws have 
practically shut the colored race out from participation in 
government. 

Treaty with Great Britain. — On May 8, 1871, by the 
Treaty of Washington, the United States and Great Britain 
settled the disputes arising out of the Civil War, especially the 
dispute as to the damages to American shipping by the "Ala- 
bama" and other Confederate commerce-destroyers built or 
outfitted or both in England, and agreed to arbitrate the 
amounts. 

Grant Seeks to Annex Santo Domingo, — In 1869 the 
Republic of Santo Domingo sought annexation by the United 
States under circumstances that indicated a decidedly "jingo- 
istic" policy on the part of the President, who had used ships 
of war and American Government officers rather beyond the 
extent of his powers as indicated by the Constitution. A pro- 
posed treaty leading to annexation was fought strenuously 
by Senator Charles Sumner, then the leading spirit in Con- 
gress, and was defeated. There was talk even of impeaching 
the President, but the failure in the case of the unpopular 
Johnson warned the Congressional leaders to keep their hands 
off in the case of Grant. This proposed annexation was quite 
as justifiable, however, as the invasion of Cuba twenty years 
later; and far more justifiable than the Mexican War. 

Amnesty to the "Rebels." — In May, 1872, a new Am- 
nesty Act somewhat relieved the political situation in the South 
by granting full civil rights to all but four hundred persons 
who had held high office in the Confederacy. The President 
favored even greater liberality. 

Appointments to Office. — Grant was by no means dull 
to the need of Civil Service Reform. In 1870 he persuaded 
Congress to permit him to appoint a Civil Service Commission, 
but it had so little power that it accomplished scarcely more 
than setting up a standard of resistance to the evil effects of 
the Crawford Tenure of Office Act,^ by which since 1820 
every appointment automatically expired at the end of four 
years. 

The Cabinets of U. S. Grant. — The military statesman, 
once President, turned loose all of the men whom Lincoln and 
Johnson had used as Secretaries. He put in none who had 
held Cabinet places before; and he changed his men with a 

^3ee pp. 298, 301, 313, supra. 



5o6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

frequency exceeding even that of Jackson. He was a con- 
spicuously poor judge of men. The record is this : 

State, — Elihu B. Washburne of IlHnois, six days; HamiUon 
Fish of New York, eight years. 

Treasury, — George S. Boutwell of Massachusetts, four 
years; WilHam H. Richardson of Massachusetts, one year; 
Benjamin H. Bristow of Kentucky, two years ; Lot M. Morrill 
of Maine, nearly one year. 

War, — ^John A. Rawlins of Illinois, brief term ; William T. 
Sherman of Ohio, brief term; William W. Belknap of Iowa, 
six and a half years. (This was the Secretary so seriously 
under fire for corruption and fraud.) Alfonso Taft of Ohio, 
ten weeks, who was the father of President William Howard 
Taft, then nearly nineteen years old; James D. Cameron of 
Pennsylvania, nearly one year, son of the famous Simon 
Cameron. 

Attorney-General, — Ebenezer R. Hoar of Massachusetts, 
one year; Amos T. Ackerman of Georgia, one year; George 
H. Williams of Oregon, over four years ; Edwards Pierrepont 
of New York, a month; Alfonso Taft, nearly one year. 

Postmaster-General, — ^J. A. J. Cress well of Maryland, five 
years ; James W. Marshall of Virginia, seven weeks ; Marshall 
Jewell of Connecticut, two years ; James N. Tyner of Indiana, 
nearly one year. 

Navy, — Adolph E. Borie of Pennsylvania, three months; 
George M. Robeson of New Jersey, nearly eight years. 

Interior, — ^Jacob D. Cox of Ohio, one and a half years; 
Columbus Delano of Ohio, five years; Zachariah Chandler of 
Michigan, one and a half years. 

Nepotism and Corruption. — Grant was guilty of misuse 
of the power of appointment. He provided places for ap- 
parently all his relatives and intimate friends. No other Presi- 
dent, before or since, ever did anything like this. Certain con- 
tracts, outrageously profitable, came to benefit persons near 
himself. His own style of living was such as the nation had 
never witnessed before in the case of any President. That 
Grant in 1861 was poor and continued poor throughout the 
war was a matter of common knowledge. Nearly all the 
Presidents since J. Q. Adams had saved part of their salaries 
for the evil days when they must go out and down from the 
highest station in the land. Grant was spending liberally upon 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 507 

a large family. It is true that his salary was now double that 
of Lincoln. But small things as well as great pointed to singu- 
lar relations. The Philadelphia multimillionaire and inter- 
national banker, Anthony J. Drexel, was one of the most 
intimate friends of the President; he bragged that upon his 
frequent visits to the Executive Mansion (as the White House 
was then called) he gave a double gold eagle to each of the 
menials and servitors. Grant visited him in return for a week 
at a time. 

The Atmosphere of Washington; Renomination. — 
The atmosphere at Washington became too thick for breathing 
comfortably by honest and sensitive men.^ Yet the Republican 
party by acclamation unanimously proposed Grant as Presi- 
dent for a second term. It named Henry Wilson of Massachu- 
setts as Vice-President. He had long been Senator and Chair- 
man of the Military Committee, and in 1862 had introduced 
the bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and had 
carried it, — virtually the same bill that Abraham Lincoln had 
introduced when Congressman.^ He was Sumner's colleague 
and had been Lincoln's friend. It was an exceptionally strong 
nomination. 

Horace Greeley Fusion Candidate. — But a group of 
Liberal Republicans had wished to secure a stronger President 
than Grant could be ; and in May they organized a convention 
at Cincinnati. Their intention was to nominate for President 
Charles Francis Adams, whose record in diplomacy proclaimed 
him a man of the first class in statesmanship. But the con- 
vention was stolen by politicians who forced the nomination 
of Horace Greeley, editor of "The New York Tribune," then 
the most powerful newspaper in America. With him was 
nominated B. Gratz Brown, formerly Senator from Missouri. 
Later, the Democratic party met and endorsed this ticket in 
convention. 

Horace Greeley took the nomination seriously, and set to 
work to win. His wife was a Southern woman, — from North 
Carolina; his running mate was a native Kentuckian, and a 
genuine "border State" man. Even Horatio Seymour, four 
years before, had carried New York State against Grant, Gree- 
ley was the apostle of the emancipation of labor from igno- 

^See p. 84, supra. 'See p. 439, supra. 



5o^ LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

ranee, oppression, vice, and servitude. Karl Marx, the inter- 
national Socialist, was the London correspondent of his paper, 
— at a guinea a week. By speeches everywhere, Greeley made 
a tremendous effort to win. But though he did in fact re- 
ceive 2,834,000 votes. Grant had 3,597,000; and the Electoral 
College stood 286 to 63. The defeat broke Greeley's heart; 
and he died in a nervous collapse November 29, 1872, a victim 
of American politics. One man cannot at once change a great 
nation's habits of thought and action. 

Currency Inflation Vetoed. — In his second term, Grant 
vetoed the Inflation Bill of 1874. Some persons thought 
that "the more money, the more wealth." They had seen 
fiat money made by the Legal Tender Act of 1862 to sup- 
port the Interstate War, an act never favored by Chase and 
McCulloch of the Treasury Department. In Lincoln, how- 
ever, there still persisted some of the financial heresies that 
Jackson and Van Buren had exposed. Soon afterward, the 
Government undertook preparation for the resumption of 
specie payment. 

M. R. Waite Chief Justice, — In 1874, following the 
death of Chief Justice Chase, President Grant named and the 
Senate confirmed Morrison R. Waite of Ohio as his succes- 
sor, a good man but without the ability and reputation appro- 
priate to that position. He was distinctly a railroad corpora- 
tion attorney, — in close financial relations with the rising Van- 
derbilt millionaires who were on intimate terms with Grant. 

The District of Columbia Victimized, — In the same 
year Congress took the suffrage away from all residents of 
the District of Columbia, and reduced the Washingtonians to 
helots lower than freedmen. Two reasons were given — that 
the freedmen held the balance of power in the Capital between 
the Democrats and the Republicans, and that corruption, elec- 
tion frauds, insecurity of life, person, and property prevailed 
in the District. By this move, with the strong approval of 
the President, the people of the Capital were thrown from the 
frying-pan of political wickedness into the fire of human 
worthlessness. Self-respecting persons no longer acquired 
permanent residence in the District. All are transients or else 
voting citizens in Maryland with second residences in Wash- 
ington. Corruption, thereby, was transferred from the voting 
citizenship of the District to Congress governing the District. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 509 

Public Confidence Lost. — The scandals of government 
continued to increase. Wholesale revenue frauds in whiskey 
and other items were uncovered. In the postal service, the 
Star Route mail frauds came to light. Despite an excellent 
financial policy in the Treasury Department, Grant lost the 
public confidence. In 1876, the Republicans rejoiced in the 
two-term tradition. The nation's debt of gratitude had been 
paid, and the nation's government debauched to pay it. 

The Centennial State Admitted. — In 1876, one hundred 
years after the Declaration of Independence, Colorado, the 
Centennial State, was admitted into the Union. Though known 
to the world since the time of the Spanish explorer Coronado, 
1540, Colorado received her first considerable population after 
the discovery of gold in 1858. Johnson had vetoed in 1867 
the admission of this great State with 103,000 square miles 
of land, whose scenery and wealth are the astonishment of 
all the known world now. 

Tour of the World. — In 1877, upon his retirement from 
the Presidency, General Grant set out upon a tour of the world, 
accompanied by Mrs. Grant and by one of their sons. Every- 
where, he was treated with distinction. Everywhere, he made 
a good impression for this country and for himself. Upon his 
return from this trip, which included the great nations of 
Europe and India, China and Japan, the General went home 
to Galena, Illinois, arriving there late in 1880. 

Seeks Third Term. — In that same year, in June, Grant 
had received upon 36 ballots over 300 votes in the Republican 
Convention at Chicago. Three factors contributed to his 
defeat. The first was the two-term tradition. Even some of 
his friends refused to vote for the nomination because they 
did not believe in giving any man a third term whether con- 
secutive or recurrent. Others of his friends thought that 
because of this tradition even Grant could not win at the polls. 
The second factor in his defeat was the now general knowl- 
edge of the corruption of the Government during his adminis- 
tration. The third factor was the popular favor of James G. 
Blaine, "the plumed knight" of Maine, protagonist of high 
protection, in a sense a reincarnation of the magnetic Henry 
Clay. A "dark horse" won.^ 

Heroic End. — In August, 1881, Grant removed to New 
York City, to join a banking firm by the name of Grant S? 

*See pp. 55, 165, supra, and p. 524, infra, 



510 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Ward, one of his sons being the active partner, himself a silent 
one. The ex-President paid no attention to the business, 
though he invested every dollar in his possession in it. In but 
three years, the firm failed, ov^^ing millions and having almost 
no assets. Gigantic frauds had been perpetrated by two of 
the partners. Grant was now penniless and in disgrace. He 
owed to William H. Vanderbilt for cash loans $150,000, and 
was also already the victim of either tuberculosis or cancer of 
the throat, — physicians still dispute which. His financial con- 
dition aroused the editors of "The Century Magazine," — who 
included the poet Richard Watson Gilder, — and they asked 
him for some memoirs of the War. The sick man set himself 
to the unfamiliar task of writing. The disease came on apace. 
In June, 1885, he was removed to Mount McGregor, near 
Saratoga, where on July 19, he finished his great work. On 
the 23d he died. That spring he had been made general of 
the army on the retired list by vote of Congress. The heroic 
fight against poverty and disgrace and the perfect style of the 
"Personal Memoirs" conspired to give the work such a sale as 
to realize nearly $500,000 to his heirs, paying all his debts, 
and leaving a balance to his widow. 

Grant^s Tomb. — In memory of Grant, his fellow country- 
men, by their voluntary contributions, have built a tomb of 
granite and porphyry on Riverside Drive in New York City, 
overlooking the Hudson river. In this mausoleum, the finest 
ever erected to an American, the body of Grant was laid in 
1897 with appropriate ceremonies. There also rests now the 
body of Mrs. Grant, the mother of three sons and one daugh- 
ter. She died in 1902. 

Ulysses S. Grant was one of the most lovable persons ever 
in American public life, yet he had the personal dignity of the 
Sphinx. His was a massive yet a simple personality, a con- 
queror with no slightest lust of battle. 

Imperturbable. — "Let us have peace," said he again and 
again. That was his spirit. It accounts for the vast cam- 
paigns in the West and in the East. Perhaps, also, it accounts 
for his failings as President in the political atmosphere of 
Washington after the war. He disliked controversy. He made 
war upon war itself. His own motive in seeking to annex 
Santo Domingo was to end the civil wars there. 

Yet Grant was at heart a soldier, by no means a thinker or 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 511 

an observer. He did the work that came to his hand. In this 
spirit, he fought "the greenback monster." By saying in 
1876-77, that he, General Grant, would seat whichever man 
the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Electoral Commission 
ordered, he ended the talk of armed assaults by Democrats 
upon the White House. If he had Cleveland, however, to op- 
pose, instead of Tilden, there might have been a different 
story. There might have been another civil war, had Grant 
not spoken. He went through life imperturbable. Jealous 
superiors might put him in the guardhouse, temperance zealots 
might ask his removal for drunkenness, reformers might de- 
nounce him for crimes of omission and of commission as 
President, scoundrels might steal every dollar that he had and 
plunge him into debt apparently beyond recovery, and incurable 
Idisease might eat his throat, — naught moved his soul. Such 
isoMdity of character is greatness. He was poised, stable, 
enduring, self -centered, self-secure. 

Ulysses S. Grant stood before Kings unabashed, before tens 
lof thousands in battle unexcited, before poverty calm, before 
scandals involving his official and personal honor unbaffled. He 
had seen all things in all the earth save personal loss of dear 
ones ; and he had overcome. Was it partly because such a man 
is an enigma, ta most of his fellows that they forgave him 
so much and helped him to overcome? 

The Estimate of a Poet. — ^We may perhaps best accept 
the estimate of the poet Ambrose Bierce, and think of Gen- 
eral Grant, — 

"He fringed the continent with fire, 
The rivers ran in lines of light! 
Thy will be done on earth — if right 
Or wrong, he cared not to inquire. 

"Let us have peace : our clouded eyes 
Fill, Father, with another light 
That we may see with clearer sight 
Jhy servant's soul in Paradise." 



512 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 



CHAPTER XX 

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (With an Account of his 
RiVAL^ Samuel J. Tilden) 

1877-1881 

I 822- I 893 

38 States 1880— Population 50,155.783 

Tilden elected — Hayes constitutionally inaugurated — two rich men — much 
money spent in the election — educated at Kenyon College and Harvard 
Law School — marriage — city solicitor of Cincinnati — a good soldier — • 
Major-General of Volunteers — member House of Representatives — 
Governor of Ohio — dark horse candidate — a rich banker chosen as 
Vice-Presidential candidate — Tilden highly educated — great railroad 
lawyer — damages the canal ring — destroys Tweed — the popular vote 
— contested Electoral votes in not a few States — campaign frauds — 
the legal disputes — the Electoral Commission meant by Congress to be 
non-partisan, grossly bi-partisan — a federation, not a nation — John 
Sherman — specie resumption — removes Chester Alan Arthur, collector 
port of New York — a civil service reformer — lets reconstruction fail 
in the South — the changed social situation — a friend of the Indians — 
forest conservation — his personal and official ethics — religious and 
pious like Taylor and Polk — a patriarchal family like W. H. Harrison, 
Johnson and Grant — a beautiful old age — his personal appearance. 

Tilden Elected. — Once in American history, we elected 
one man President, but for constitutional reasons we caused 
another man to serve. The man who became President made 
a good record; but it has been the general opinion that the 
candidate actually elected but ruled out on legal grounds would 
have made a better President. 

TiLDEN^s "Bar^l^' Tapped. — ^At least once in our history, a 
deal of money was spent to corrupt the electorate. How much 
the candidates contributed to the campaign funds and spent 
otherwise in great amounts, we are not likely ever to know. 
Hayes was rich, but Tilden was four or five times richer.^ 
Millions of dollars was spent upon each side. In the language 
of the politics of the time, "Tilden's bar'l was tapped." He 
was a bachelor and ambitious. The expenditures of Hayes 
were better concealed. 

*See p. 47, supra. 



RUTHERFORD BIRCH ARD HAYES 513 

This charge of bribery and other corruption at the elections 
had been made many times before. But, in 1876-7, it was 
proven in respect to each side. This is one reason why the 
Democratic candidate accepted defeat gracefully.^ 

In other words, a situation in part foreseen by the fathers 
came to pass. Two rich men were pitted against one another 
for the great stake of the Presidency. What the fathers had 
not provided was a proper way to decide when there was 
almost a tie between candidates and when the votes necessary 
to decide were in dispute. 

Early Life of Hayes. — The nineteenth President of the 
people of the United States was born in Ohio, at Delaware, on 
October 4, 1822. His parents were well-to-do and sent him to 
Kenyon College and then to the Law School of Harvard. No 
better educated man was ever President. He secured his law 
diploma and admission to the bar of Ohio in the same year, 
1845. After practicing a brief time at Lower Sandusky (now 
Fremont) Hayes removed to Cincinnati, where he soon rose 
to prominence, making money and becoming city solicitor 
in 1858. 

In December, 1852, being thirty years of age, Hayes married 
Lucy Ware Webb of Chillicothe, then twenty-one years old, a 
young lady of some property. 

Marriage. — In 1854 he had left the Whig party to become 
a Republican. From the first, he had been an anti-slavery man. 
As soon as the war broke out, he entered the volunteer service 
as major. In July, 1861, he was on the firing line in western 
Virginia. He served four years, winning especial distinction 
at South Mountain, Winchester, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar 
Creek. He was a brave yet careful soldier, not an aggressive 
leader and in no sense a political creature. When the war 
was over, he was by brevet major-general of volunteers. Four 
wounds attested his bravery and constant patriotism. 

General Hayes in Congress. — In 1864 General Hayes 
was elected to Congress, serving two terms as a strong anti- 
Johnson man, and supporter of the Republican method of 
reconstruction. He belonged distinctly to the "bloody-shirt" 
irreconcilables. 

' Governor of Ohio. — In 1868 Hayes was elected governor 
of Ohio, continuing in that office until 1872. In that year, he 
ran again for Congress but was defeated. In 1873, he removed 

^See p. 517, infra. 



514 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

to Fremont, intending to leave public life; but in 1875, his 
party again placed him in nomination for the governorship. 
A campaign followed that attracted national attention. The 
Democratic party declared for an indefinite enlargement of all 
irredeemable paper currency. The Republicans stood for re- 
sumption of specie payments and for "intrinsic money of 
redemption." They were now, in other words, the heirs of 
Jackson and Van Buren. The Democrats of 1840 were the 
financial teachers of the Republicans of 1875. And the Whigs 
of 1840 were the forerunners of the Democrats of 1875. In 
this campaign of 1875, Hayes again won. 

The Contest for the Republican Nomination. — The 
Republican National Convention met at Cincinnati in June, 
1876. The first ballot for Presidential candidate stood, — 



Blaine 285. 


Hayes 


61. 


0. P. Morton 124. 


Hartranft 


58. 


Bristow 113. 


Jewell 


II. 


Conkling 99. 


Wheeler 


3- 



Blaine was the most brilliant man in American public life, 
Speaker of the House, and soon to be Senator. Conkling of 
New York already hated him. Blaine was a wonderful public 
speaker ; but there was a stain on his escutcheon, certain Mulli- 
gan letters in the Credit Mobilier case of the transcontinental 
railroads. His wife was a Catholic, a fact that certain poli- 
ticians thought would cause a considerable defection, for most 
of the old "Know Nothings" were now Republicans. Yet on 
the seventh ballot, Blaine's vote had risen to 351, but Hayes 
had 384, and Bristow 21. This bare majority was at once 
made unanimous. For the Vice-Presidential candidate, Wil- 
liam Almon Wheeler was named. He was a banker by pro- 
fession and had served five terms in Congress. He strength- 
ened the ticket financially and as a New Yorker; but he was 
otherwise a selection without merit. 

Opposed to this ticket of Hayes and Wheeler, the Demo- 
crats set up Samuel J. Tilden of New York and Thomas O. 
Hendricks of Indiana, a better ticket but at that time probably 
a worse party. 

Samuel J. Tilden. — As Tilden was actually elected, he is 
entitled to more than a passing notice. He had been born at 



RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES 515 

New Lebanon, N. Y., February 9, 18 14. After preparation in 
good schools, he attended first Yale College and then New 
York University. In 184 1, he was admitted to the bar. Until 
this time his health had been poor, but afterward this greatly 
improved, enabling him to rise to the first rank as a lawyer in 
New York City. He became the great railroad lawyer of 
America. In politics, he followed Martin Van Buren. During 
the Interstate War, he was a pro-Lincoln Democrat In 1866, 
as Chairman of the Democratic State Committee, he unearthed 
the signs of the frauds of the New York City Tweed ring. 
In 1872, as a member of the State Assembly, he took a leading 
part in the impeachment of the corrupt judges by whose con- 
nivance Tweed had been successful as boss. 

Governor of New York. — This exposure of Tweed and 
Tammany brought Tilden into public view and made him gov- 
ernor in 1874. There he attacked the "canal ring." He was 
now the best known reformer in the United States; and the 
highest credit would attach to the Democrats for nominating 
on6 who had exposed a Democratic ring in New York City 
but for the fact that they were influenced by hopes of generous 
slush funds for the Presidential campaign. 

Hendricks was a native of Ohio, who had served in Con- 
gress both as Representative and as Senator.^ 

The Vote in 1876, Our Centennial Year. — In the elec- 
tion of 1876, Hayes received in all 4,033,295 votes, Tilden 
4,284,265. Not only so, but Hayes had only 163 uncontested 
electoral votes while Tilden had 184. The number necessary 
for a choice was 185. There were contests in South Carolina, 
Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon. And there were materials 
for contests in Vermont where, however, Hayes had 24,000 
majority ; but the credentials were irregular. There were also 
other minor disputes. There were combustibles enough about, 
and the tinder was ready. Would any one set 2, spark ? 

Four States sent in two sets of electoral ballots. From 
Oregon, one set of ballots gave to Hayes three votes, the other 
gave to him two votes with one to Tilden. 

The Constitutional Question. — The three other States 
each sent in two entirely different lists of electors. The con- 
stitutional question arose, — Who is to determine these votes ? It 
was a question that involved some half dozen other questions. 

I. Did the President of the Senate count the votes, while 

*See p. 534, infra,. 



5i6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Congress looked on? Or did the two houses of Congress 
count them, while the President recorded the count? 

2. Was this counting a judicial or an arithmetical process? 
If sorely arithmetical, who gave the judicial decisions requi- 
site? Must Congress now legislate to fill the vacuum in the 
statutes ? 

3. Might the President, the Vice-President, any Justice, the 
Senate, or Congress go behind a State certificate and review the 
acts of the certifying officers ? 

4. Might Congress review the State election itself? 

.5. If so, might Congress appoint a commission to attend 
to these matters? How far might Congress delegate its 
powers ? 

An Electoral Commission. — Unhappily, the Senate was 
Republican, the House Democratic. The country seemed on 
the verge of civil war again.^ Three Southern ex-Confederate 
States were involved; and Oregon had strong Southern S)mi- 
pathies due to settlers and to climate. After long dispute, on 
January 29, 1877, Congress created an Electoral Commission 
to advise and direct, their decisions to stand unless rejected by 
both Houses. This Commission consisted of 3 Republican 
Senators, 2 Republican Representatives, 2 Republican Justices 
of the Supreme Court, and 2 Democratic Senators, 3 Demo- 
cratic Representatives, and 2 Democratic Justices; all by ap- 
pointment of Congress. As the fifteenth member, these four- 
teen men were to select another Justice. 

Its Membership. — Able men were chosen from Congress, 
— Edwards of Vermont, Morton of Indiana, Frelinghuysen 
of New Jersey, Thurman of Ohio, Bayard of Delaware, Payne 
of Ohio, Hunton of Virginia, Abbott and Hoar of Massachu- 
setts, and Garfield of Ohio. The Justices were Strong, Miller, 
Clifford, and Field. They chose Justice Joseph P. Bradley as 
the fifteenth member. He was a native of New York but a 
resident of New Jersey. Grant had appointed him in 1870. 
He was a Republican. The Democrats employed as counsel 
before a Commission of eight great lawyers, including Charles 
O'Conor, Jeremiah S. Black, and Lyman Trumbull. The 
Republicans employed four lawyers, William M. Evarts as 
leader. 

On the face of affairs, judging by the popular votes, candid 
and impartial observers thought that Hayes had really car- 

; ^See p. 103, supra. 



RUTHERFORD BIRCH ARD HAYES 517 

ried South Carolina and Oregon, and Tilden Florida and 
Louisiana; in other words, Tilden had a safe majority. 

Frauds. — The Louisiana situation was this : The Republi- 
cans there had thrown out several thousand Democratic votes. 
The two parties now reversed their historic positions. The 
Democrats insisted that the Commission should go behind the 
returns of the State and correct the wrongs ; the Republicans 
insisted upon State sovereignty as final. Here Tilden and 
Hendricks were estopped from pushing their case. To do so, 
was to abandon historic ground of constitutional interpretation. 

The Commission voted 8 to 7 to take the returns prima facie. 
— Edmunds, Morton, Frelinghuysen, Hoar, Garfield, Strong, 
Miller, Field, and Bradley, Republicans, voted according to 
party. And they kept on steadily voting in every essential 
point 8 Republicans to 7 Democrats. 

Universal Partisanship. — They were not judges but 
partisans.^ In other terms, judges are as human as the rest 
of us. Reverence for courts is superstition; but respect for 
them is a patriotic duty until proof of un worthiness is estab- 
lished. It was established in this conspicuous instance upon 
the face of the record. 

The Electoral Commission settled two questions, — ist. Con- 
gress determines the count; 2d, on the face of the returns, 
deciding merely which returns represent the State sovereignty. 
In February, 1887, Congress converted these principles into 
statute law. 

Probably, this settlement is in accordance with the Con- 
stitution. Certainly, it was not in accordance with law and 
ethics. But the settlement asserts our federalism and denies 
complete nationalism. 

No man knows whether Hayes or Tilden would have been 
elected, if no money had been spent improperly, no intimida- 
tion used, and the votes of all negroes accepted cheerfully. 
Ethics and politics have no necessary parallelism or intercon- 
nection; but there is a day of final accounting, 

A Peace Patriot. — ^Tilden was a patriot for peace, and 
immediately issued a letter advising his partisans to acquiesce. 
Nor did he hope ever to run again. 

A Pleasant Disappointment; His Cabinet. — In order 
that there should be a President on Sunday, Rutherford B. 
Hayes took his oath of office Saturday, March 3, and re- 

^See p. 414, supra. 



5i8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

peated it Monday, March 5, 1877.^ The country expected a 
weak administration and was considerably and happily dis- 
appointed. His cabinet was sound and enduring. 

State, — William M. Evarts of New York. 

Treasury, — ^John Sherman of Ohio. 

War, — George W. McCrary of Iowa, two and a half years; 
Alexander Ramsey of Minnesota, one and a half years. 

Attorney-General,— Charles Devens of Massachusetts. 

Postmaster-General, — D. McK. Key of Tennessee, three 
years; Horace Maynard of Tennessee, nearly one year. 

Navy, — Richard W. Thompson of Indiana, nearly four 
years; Nathan Goff, Jr., of West Virginia, two months. 

Interior, — Carl Schurz of Missouri. 

Of these men, four, — Evarts, Sherman, Devens, and 
Schurz, — were of unusual ability for Cabinet Secretaries. 
Schurz was a brilliant, erratic, loyal German revolutionary 
emigre who had a war record decidedly worth while. 

Silver Legal Tender. — ^A bill went through Congress 
making the silver dollar of 412^ grains legal tender for all 
debts, unless anything else was specifically named in the con- 
tract. Hayes vetoed this bill; but Congress passed it over 
his veto. 

Specie Payment Resumed. — Nevertheless, with the mag- 
nificent support of John Sherman, one of the clearest-headed 
statesmen whom this country ever saw, on January i, 1879, 
specie pajnnent was resumed, without any resultant panic, as 
had been prophesied. On the contrary, the business of the 
country immediately improved. In his December, 1879, mes- 
sage, Hayes urged Congress to repeal the silver act, to suspend 
the coinage of silver, and to withdraw all legal tender money — 
greenbacks — from circulation. But Congress failed to act. 

Civil Service Reform. — The President tried to get money 
for the work of the Civil Service Commission appointed by 
Grant, but failed. Nevertheless, he introduced at many points 
in the service competitive examinations. These included the 
post office and custom house in New York. He ordered that 
"no officer should be required or permitted to take part in the 
management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions, 
or election campaigns" and tried to put an end to the great 
evil of assessing officers and clerks for campaign purposes, an 
evil foreseen by the makers of the Constitution as tending 

*In the same situation, Taylor waited until Monday. 



RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES 519 

to build up a self-perpetuating bureaucracy/ Because they per- 
sisted in using their offices for partisan ends, he removed Ches- 
ter Alan Arthur,^ the collector at the port of New York; 
Alonzo B. Cornell, the naval officer there, and George H. 
Sharpe, the surveyor of customs ; and others elsewhere. Arthur 
afterward became President ; Cornell, Governor of New York ; 
and Sharpe Speaker of the New York Assembly. These re- 
movals of prominent men showed the mettle of President 
Hayes and helped forward the cause of civil service reform. 
They were, of course, made possible only because of the failure 
of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. But they made 
Senator Roscoe Conkling a bitter enemy of the President. 

Carpet-Bag Governments Fall. — Hayes tried to make 
friends with the natural leaders of the South. He withdrew 
the Federal troops from the State Capitals and allowed the 
carpet-bag governments to fall. Of course, this weakened 
the Republican party at the South. Many considered this a 
betrayal of the freedmen. With the removal of the troops, 
the Ku Klux Klan disappeared. 

The Races Separated. — By this time the race-situation in 
the South had greatly changed. The race-miscegenation, so 
generally characteristic of humanity under similar conditions, 
which, prior to i860, had been so steadily increasing that a 
mestizo South with almost no whites or blacks was possible 
within a hundred years,^ had almost entirely ceased. In 1831, 
Virginia had proposed emancipation partly for this reason. 
It is highly interesting to note that Connecticut had chattel 
slaves until 1850. After the war, the attempt of the freedmen 
to gain control of the "Black Belt" had ended in race-aliena- 
tion, which, however, since the time of Hayes is gradually 
declining. The colored man and the true negro constitute two 
social castes below the white. There is no other possible basis 
of peaceful social relations. Hayes was statesman enough to 
help to this solution of the race problem. 

The urban colored man is one "nation" ; the rural negro an- 
other "nation." The former are "brights" (opprobriously 
styled "yallers") ; the latter are "browns" (opprobriously 

'See p. z'77, infra. *See pp. 532, 533, infra. 

*See J. F. Rhodes' History of the United States after the Compromise 
of 1850. 



^520! XIVES.OF THE ^PRESIDENTS ' 

styled "negroes" or "blacks" )V They are more hostile to one 
another, more resentful, than to the whites. 

Hayes did other wise things, — among them gave much atten- 
tion to ameliorating the condition of the Indians, and began 
that forest conservation since then become so great a politi- 
cal issue. 

His Personal Notions. — But not only did he"~bfTend Re- 
publican politicians by attacks upon the spoils system, — Hayes 
had certain personal notions, never serving wine or alcoholic 
stimulants of any kind at the White House, nor smoking 
cigars. Moreover, he never had a conversation without a 
record taken then and there by a shorthand writer. He had 
no quiet conferences for deals. He was a strictly religious 
man, like Zachary Taylor and Polk; and the White House 
sheltered a very serious household. Moreover, the Democratic 
politicians always talked of the cloud upon his title. He was 
unpopular, — therefore an impossible candidate, this man who 
had many less than the majority of the popular vote and who 
had been railroaded into office upon legal technicalities. 

In Old Age. — His old age was very happy. Great uni- 
versities gave him their highest degrees. He was President 
of the National Prison (reform) Association; and also of the 
Board of Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund to promote in- 
dustrial education among the colored people of the South. He 
worked steadily and faithfully for many philanthropic causes, 
giving not only his time but also money. 

In 1889, his wife, the mother of seven sons and of one 
daughter, died. Three years later, upon January 17, 1893, he 
passed away from paralysis of the heart, at Fremont, being 
then seventy years old. The early Presidents evidently had 
easier lives. 

Personal Appearance. — Rutherford B. Hayes was a man 
of attractive personal appearance, — ^large, dignified, quiet, de- 
cisive, of a military-bearing, and in later years of a fatherly, 
even patriarchal cast of countenance and manner. His was a 
Presidential type of personality. 



RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES 521 



CHAPTER XXI 

, James Abram Garfield 

1881 
1831-1881 

39 States Population 51,000,000 

The assassin a social symptom — early life of Garfield — the canal boat 
experience — school teaching — educated at Williams College — Hiram 
College President — in politics as an orator — State Assemblyman — 
lawyer — Colonel Ohio Volunteers — Major-General — Representative in 
Congress — marriage — a radical — a leader and a student — scandals — 
member Electoral Commission — United States Senator-elect — "Any- 
thing to beat Grant" — a dark horse candidate — the Democratic ticket 
— a scurrilous campaign — President — his Cabinet — the New York half- 
breeds — the assassination — died poor — what might have been. 

The Assassin a Social Symptom. — Under President Gar- 
field, the spoils system bore bitter fruit. But it took more 
than the spoils system to make an assassin of Charles Julius 
Guiteau. He had been a lawyer in Chicago and author of 
books upon moral and religious questions, books that displayed 
him as an overschooled mediocre mind, dizzy with vagaries. 
But it took more than vagaries, — misunderstood by him to be 
metaphysics and ethics, — to make an assassin of Guiteau at 
thirty-nine years of age. He must go to Washington, live in 
its boarding houses, talk politics with its broken-down poli- 
ticians, with its life's failures turned office-seekers, and occa- 
sionally becoming clerks, and drench himself in the same mis- 
erable society whence John Wilkes Booth issued to slay 
Lincoln. The man whom the courts executed on June 30, 
1842, for shooting James A. Garfield on July 2, 1841, was 
weak-minded and perverted and vicious. The wrongs of the 
"Stalwarts" of New York^ sizzled in his mind because it was 
originally and by chosen associates an overheated mind. He 
thought that he was fitted to be an American consul some- 
where, — preferably at Paris, — but anywhere with honor and 
salary, while in fact he was not fit to be alive and loose among 
his fellow Americans. In several ways, he was a social symp- 
tom, a sign of the times, a product and an example of warning. 
Like Booth and Czolgoscz, the other murderers of Presidents, 

^See p. 529, infra. 



522 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS^ 

he was also essentially a foreigner, for the parents of all three 
were foreign-bom. 

No Real Protection for Presidents. — The most miser- 
able feature of the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and 
McKinley is that we set these men up in the open to be the 
targets of criminals against society; and we have yet to dis- 
cover any way to protect the targets from criminals. 

Early Life. — Garfield was bom on November 19, 183 1, in 
a log-cabin in Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. This was 
the Western Reserve, settled by enterprising Yankees, mostly 
from Connecticut. His father was a farmer, and James 
worked on the farm, attending district school only in winter. 
When he was sixteen years old, he left his home and mother, 
by this time a widow, intending to make a living as a sailor. 
But the ship captain to whom he applied in Cleveland upon 
Lake Erie for a berth and a job drove the awkward country 
boy away. Soon, the lad found work as helper on a canal- 
boat. He drove the mules and labored as deckhand for some 
months. Out of his birth in a log-cabin and this experience 
as a canalboat boy, material was to be gathered to rank Gar- 
field in later history with Lincoln "the railsplitter," Johnson 
"the tailor," and other Presidents of humble beginnings. 

Educated at Williams College. — Life on the canal soon 
gave Garfield malarial fever; and, racked by ague, he went 
home to the farm. He worked as rural school teacher, as 
carpenter, and as farmhand indifferently while he made his 
way through a seminary at Chester, Ohio, and the Western 
Reserve Eclectic Institute at Hiram. He had seen enough of 
the world to know the importance of education and now set 
out for Williams College in Massachusetts, where he was 
graduated in 1856 at twenty-four years of age. Of this insti- 
tution, his son, Henry A. Garfield, born in 1863, became Presi- 
dent in 1908. 

Small College President. — Immediately after gradua- 
tion, James Abram Garfield returned to the Hiram Institute 
as teacher of Greek and Latin. In 1857, the institute became 
a college; and Garfield, its first President. 

His Personality. — ^Already, he was interested in politics. 
He was a big, vigorous, handsome young man of engaging 
manners, S5rmpathetic, and affable; and the world cheerfully 
opened before him. In 1857 and in 1858, he made many 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD '523 

political speeches as an ardent anti-slavery man, stirred by the 
effects of the Kansas-Nebraska Act/ In 1859, his District 
sent him to the State Senate, though he continued to serve as 
President of little Hiram College. In the State Legislature, he 
took advanced, and at times rather lonely, ground, and was 
usually beaten as too radical. In 1861 he was admitted to 
the bar, for he had found time to study law despite his other 
occupations. 

Major-General. — Early in 1861, Garfield became Colonel 
of the 426. Ohio Volunteers, with many Hiram College stu- 
dents in the ranks. He did brilliant service in Kentucky, be- 
coming brigadier-general, and early in 1862 defeating the Con- 
federates in Eastern Kentucky at Prestonburg. At Shiloh, 
his corps was part of that reserve under General Buell which 
won the second day's fight. In 1863, he was chief of staff 
under Rosecrans in the Army of Cumberland. His bravery 
at Chickamauga led to his promotion to be major-general of 
volunteers. 

Representative in Congress. — Marriage and Family. — 
But though a good soldier, Garfield was destined to another 
field of combat, the floor of Congress. In 1862, his district 
elected him a Representative, and resigning from the army, he 
took his seat in December, 1863, being then thirty-two years 
of age. In 1858 he had married Lucretia Rudolph, a lady 
of twenty-six years; and a growing family, together with 
natural instincts to study and to debate, led him from the 
camp to the forum. Once in Congress, he was soon notable 
as a radical of the radicals. He advocated the confiscation 
of the private property of the Confederates, — using the usual 
terms of "rebel" and "traitor," — to repay in part the ruin 
that, according to him, they had "made" but in truth suffered 
themselves, and threatened their Northern brothers. Garfield 
voted for the Wade-Davis resolution denouncing Lincoln as 
supine. When history is really written with fullness of 
truth, a few centuries hence, what revelations our descendants 
will have of the reciprocal views of the great in 1861-1865! 
Lincoln looked upon Garfield as a brash, virulent youngster; 
but stiffened his back notwithstanding. 

A Diligent Student of Public Affairs. — General Gar- 
field soon rose to be chairman of some important committees, — 
military affairs, banking and currency, and appropriations. He 

*See p. 410, supra. 



524 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

was not only ready and brilliant; he was also a prodigiously 
hard worker. No man in Congress ever prepared his speeches 
and reports more thoroughly. He studied in the Library of 
Congress mornings and nights, and at noon and in the after- 
noon was master on the floor because he had the facts and the 
history. Of all the business relating to the three constitutional 
amendments, the Freedmen's Bureau, with its enormous 
powers, reconstruction, the national debt, the currency, taxa- 
tion of bonds, national aid to education, the revenues, General 
Garfield was the foremost exponent in the House, where he 
served until 1880, when he was elected to the Senate. 

A Fight for Re-election. — Not every one of Garfield's 
reelections came easily. In 1874, he was accused of corruption 
in the Credit Mobilier affair,^ but he made a village-to-village 
and house-to-house canvass, and won in a year of general dis- 
aster to the Republican party. He was a man now of great 
fascination upon the platform, and his manners were socially 
graceful and pleasing. These qualities rather than proof of 
innocence saved him. 

In 1877 he served on the Electoral Commission and voted 
every time for his party. In the same year, when Blaine left 
the House and the floor leadership to become Senator from 
Maine, Garfield took his place. 

Again a Dark Horse Wins. — In 1880, at the Republican 
Convention, New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois united to 
nominate General Grant for a third term. These men were 
known as "Stalwarts." They were Roscoe Conkling men, de- 
fenders of the spoils system. A second faction of the party 
stood for James G. Blaine. A third faction were for John 
Sherman of Ohio, who had agreed with Tilden not to run 
again for the Presidency lest civil disorder set in because of 
the old rancor. The forces for Secretary Sherman were headed 
and managed by Garfield, then Senator-elect. 

The first ballot stood 

Grant 304, Blaine 284, Sherman 93, Edmunds 34, Wash- 
bume 30, Windom 10. 

On thirty-two succeeding ballots, Garfield had one or two 
votes, save in five ballots, when he had none. 

The thirty- fourth ballot gave Garfield 17 votes, the thirty- 
fifth gave him 50, taken mostly from Blaine and Edmunds. 

The thirty-six ballots stood— 

^See p. S3S, infra. 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 525 

Grant 307, Blaine 42, Sherman 3, Washburne 23, Garfield 
399. Necessary for a choice 387. 

For Vice-President, the party then went to the other wing 
and chose a Stalwart, the officeholder, whom Hayes upon the 
recommendation of John Sherman had removed from the 
collectorship of the port, Che§ter Alan Arthur. 

In the convention and afterward, it was charged that Gar- 
field had sold John Sherman out and traded with Blaine. But 
whether or not the charge was true, the cry "Anything to beat 
Grant" had resulted in the coming in of a dark horse. 

The Democratic Ticket. — Against Garfield and Arthur, 
the Democrats named Hancock and English. General Win- 
field Scott Hancock was a gallant soldier, who had seen service 
in the Mexican War, and had been corps or division com- 
mander at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Spottsyl- 
vania Court House. His was indeed the division at Gettys- 
burg against which Pickett's charge, the high tide of the "Rebel- 
lion," broke in vain. Physically, he was a Saul for size and 
very handsome. 

William H. English had served in Congress during the ad- 
ministrations of Pierce and Buchanan. He was a banker of 
high standing. Hancock proved a picturesque figure. He knew 
but little more of politics than Zachary Taylor, and said 
bluntly that "the tariff is a local question." It certainly is, 
as the paid lobbyist and logrollers well understand. 

A Scandalous Campaign. — The campaign was scurrilous. 
Garfield was said to have received a dividend of Credit 
Mobilier Company stock amounting to $329, and the cities 
of the country were placarded with "329." A forged letter 
quoted him as opposed to the exclusion of the Chinese. Of 
course, he lost the South, for he had been a strong supporter 
of the "Force" acts. 

President. — In November the popular vote stood: 
; For Garfield 4,454,416; for Hancock 4,444,952. 

Garfield had but 9500 plurality. The Greenbackers had 
cast over 300,000 votes so that like many other Presidents, 
Garfield was the choice of only the largest minority as against 
the field. But in the Electoral College, he received 214 electoral 
votes to 155 for Hancock, who carried the South and NeW 
Jersey, Nevada, and California. But for the forged letter, 
Garfield would have won the two Pacific section States. 



526 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

His Cabinet. — For Secretary of State and the premier of 
his Cabinet, Garfield chose James G, Blaine. It was a move 
due to a political necessity, comparable with the moves of J. Q. 
Adams in choosing Henry Clay and of Abraham Lincoln in 
choosing William H. Seward and Simon Cameron. In so 
doing, he espoused the cause of the "Half-breeds" against 
the "Stalwarts." Senatorial courtesy calls upon the President 
to consult the Senators about all appointments to high offices 
in their States. But, ignoring Roscoe Conkling and Thomas 
G. Piatt, Garfield made William H. Robertson Collector of the 
Port of New York. The two Senators thereupon resigned. 
When they appealed to their Legislatures for reelection, each 
was defeated, but whether this would have happened but for 
the murder of Garfield, it is idle to inquire. 

Assassination. — In the angry soul of a man in Washing- 
ton, there came the notion of justice to the Stalwarts. Let 
Garfield die, and Arthur, a stalwart, will be President. The 
evil of the balancing of factions bore this strange result. On 
July 2, 1 88 1, Guiteau shot Garfield at the Washington rail- 
way station as he was about to go away to join his wife and 
family in a brief vacation. The wound was abdominal, and 
because of his fine health and great physical strength, the sur- 
geons hoped to save him. The patient was taken to a college 
at Elberon, N. J., by the sea; but despite all that the science 
and art of medicine knew how to do then, he died, after the 
bravest kind of struggle, on September 19, being two months 
less than fifty years old. 

Bright Hopes Ended. — Garfield was at one time — ^the fall 
of 1880 — Congressman, Senator-elect, and President-elect. In 
sheer ability, in grasp of problems of national import and 
destiny, in high patriotism, in oratory, and in scholarship, he 
should rank among the better Presidents, but like William 
Henry Harrison, he died too early to make an impression in 
the record of the Presidency. What his success would have 
been is all in the realm of conjecture. 

The assassination of Garfield was a blow to James G. 
Blaine, to whom the Secretaryship of State in 1881 meant 
opportunity. With Garfield as President and Blaine virtually 
as minister of foreign affairs and political leader for the 
administration, the country seemed about to enter upon its 



CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR 527 

most brilliant and progressive epoch in time of peace. The 
bullet of an assassin changed all that. 

The young President left no property, not even a cash 
balance. This fact in itself has tended to clear his reputation 
of the campaign charges of serious financial dishonor. His 
widow, the mother of four sons and one daughter, lived 
until 1909. 

The Cabinet of Garfield. — 

State, — ^James G. Blaine of Maine. 

Treasury, — ^William Windom of Minnesota. 

War, — Robert T. Lincoln of Illinois, who had left Harvard 
to become Captain U. S. A. at twenty years of age. 

Attorney-General, — Wayne McVeagh of Pennsylvania. 

Postmaster-General, — Thomas L. James of New York. 

Navy, — ^William H. Hunt of Louisiana. 

Interior, — Samuel J. Kirk wood of Iowa, 



CHAPTER XXII 
Chester Alan Arthur 

1881-1885 

1830-1886 

39 States Population 57,000,000 

A politically unintended succession — early life — educated at Union Col- 
lege — a school principal — lawyer — helps negro equality — personal ap- 
pearance — prominent in State militia — Collector Port of New York — 
removed — the balanced ticket — opposes spoils system when President — 
Pendleton — Chinese Exclusion Act — vetoed river and harbor improve- 
ment bill — tariff revision — polygamy in Utah — restrictions upon immi- 
gration — early a widower — great entertainer — ^not renominated — poor — 
soon died of disease and a broken heart. 

Another Unintended Succession. — The twenty-first 
President was the fourth Vice-President to become head of 
the nation due to the death of his chief. These successions 
were coming now with excessive frequency, — in 1841, in 
1850, in 1865, ^nd in 1 88 1. In two instances, the deaths were 



528 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

due to the climate of Washington/ — as beyond doubt was that 
also of Polk in 1849, j^^st following his term of office. But in 
two other instances, the deaths were due to assassinations, — 
to deliberately planned, carefully executed murders, [The 
assassination of Garfield in July and his death in No-vaffflber- 
had put the Vice-President, a political opponent within the 
same party, in a most trying position. Efforts were made by 
the extremists to connect the "Stalwarts" with Guiteau's mad 
deed. 

But the course of Arthur as soon as he became President 
showed that he had in him the qualities of a fairly com- 
petent politician, and his record was far better than impartial 
observers anticipated. This had happened before as in the 
case of Hayes. It has amply justified the American notion of 
suspending judgment and giving the new man in office his 
"head" and his chance, — to which notion the recall now com- 
ing into fashion is directly contrary. 

Early Life; Educated at Union College. — Chester 
Alan Arthur was born at Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont, 
on October 5, 1830. His father was a Baptist preacher, of 
Scotch-Irish ancestry, having indeed himself migrated from 
County Antrim, Ireland, when eighteen years of age. His 
mother, Malvina Stone, was an American girl, but resident 
in Canada at the time of her marriage. His parents gave this 
son a thorough education. He was graduated at Union Col- 
lege in 1848, taking high rank. He then taught school, becom- 
ing principal of the Pownall village academy in Vermont and 
using school-teaching as a stepping stone. He also studied 
law. He removed to New York City and was admitted to 
the bar there in 1854. 

Helps Negroes. — Hitherto, Arthur had been a Whig, but 
in 1854 he went as a delegate to the Republican State Conven- 
tion at Saratoga. Despite his youth, he soon made a reputa- 
tion as a lawyer, arguing as special counsel for the State in 
the "Lemmon slave case" that slaves brought into New York 
State, though in transit between two slave States, became ipso 
facto free. This was Lord Mansfield's doctrine.^ The highest 
State courts sustained the doctrine ; but, of course, it was nulli- 
fied by the Dred Scott decision. In 1855, Arthur obtained a 

*See pp. 371, 389, 398, supra. *See p. 418, supra. 



CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR 529 

decision that negroes should have in New York State the same 
street railroad accommodations as white persons. 

Personal Appearance. — Tall, large, with handsome head 
and brilliant eyes, Chester A. Arthur was quick to adapt him- 
self to the manners of the best society as judged by exponents 
of wealth and fashion. He became fastidious in dress and 
unusually suave in manner. 

Collector of Port of New York. — Before the War, he 
was judge-advocate of the Second Brigade of New York State 
militia, and thereafter became successively engineer-in-chief 
of the State militia, inspector-general, and quartermaster-gen- 
eral, which last office he held until 1863, when he resigned. 
In 1871, he became Collector of the Port of New York by 
appointment of President Grant. In 1877, he was chairman 
of the Republican Central Committee of the City of New 
York. When President Hayes issued his order against the 
political activities of office-holders, Collector Arthur ignored 
the order.^ The "Stalwarts" objected vigorously to the re- 
moval of Arthur by Hayes, asserting truly that all other 
officeholders were doing political work and that Arthur, Cor- 
nell, and Sharpe were being treated as scapegoats for merely 
continuing to do what half a century of custom had in a sense 
ratified, even sanctified. But the only way to reform is to 
begin to reform; Hayes began with big men, which was just 
though unusual. 

Vice-Presidential Candidate. — In 1880 Arthur was 
delegate-at-large from New York State to the Republican 
National Convention, As the conspicuous victim of "Half- 
breed" politics, the "Stalwart" leader was placed on the 
ticket with Garfield. The nomination was not well received. 
Arthur was looked upon as a typical New York State poli- 
tician. But as the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate 
was also coldly received by the public, the struggle turned 
mainly upon the personalities of Garfield and Hancock. The 
party leaders managed to put the currency and tariff issues in 
the background. Garfield, Arthur, and English were all 
sound-money men ; and Hancock, hoping to hold the Pennsyl- 
vania protectionists, — himself being a Pennsylvanian, — ^pro- 
tested that protection was not big enough for a national issue.^ 

^See p. 519, supra. 

''See p. 525, supra. Hancock asserted that "log-rolling" is its only legis- 
lative method. 



530 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

In the patronage fight over the appointment of Robertson^ 
as Collector, the partisan course pursued by Vice-President 
Arthur greatly offended the country. And when it became 
probable that Garfield would die, patriots were alarmed. 

Civil Service Reform. — Early in his administration, Presi- 
dent Arthur gave the strongest support to the Pendleton bill 
to establish the merit system in the place of the spoils system. 
The assassination of Garfield convinced the country that this 
source of anger and bitterness must be done away. George 
H. Pendleton had several items to his discredit, — among them 
running as Vice«-President on the ticket with George B. Mc- 
Clellan in 1864; and another, — advocating the Greenbacker 
delusions after the war; but his Civil Service Reform bill went 
far to straighten him up. He was now Senator from Ohio. 
In 1885 President Cleveland made him Minister to Germany, 
in recognition of the Pendleton Act in Arthur's administra- 
tion. By this law, the Civil Service Commission was given 
duties, powers, and money. 

Not Afraid to Veto Bills. — In 1882 President Arthur 
vetoed a Chinese Exclusion bill, to run twenty years, assert- 
ing that the time was too long and seeking to avoid inter- 
national disputes with China. He vetoed also an $18,000,000 
River and Harbor Improvement bill, partly because these 
"pork bills" are always somewhat corrupt steals from the 
public treasury, partly from disbelief in the principle. There 
Was a big surplus in the Treasury, and the curse of it was 
that a surplus is a bribe to extravagance. Later, he signed a 
bill excluding the Chinese for ten years. 

In 1883, a new Tariff Act was passed, the first thorough 
revision of customs duties since the Interstate War, but it 
pleased neither low nor high tariff partisans. 

The Mormons. — The administration of Arthur saw the 
passage of the Edmunds Anti-polygamy Act. In 1878 the 
Supreme Court had decided that Congress could prohibit 
polygamy in the Territories. The new Act established fines 
and imprisonment for polygamists and deprived them of the 
suffrage and of the right to hold office. A thousand Mormons 
were soon sent to the penitentiary. But in later years convic- 
tions have become increasingly difiBcult to secure. 

Immigration. — In 1882 and in 1885, Congress passed laws 
forbidding lunatics, idiots, paupers, convicts, and contract 

*See p. 526, supra. 



CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR 53 1 

laborers from landing upon our shores. The President's un- 
usually long experience of eight years as Collector of the Port 
of New York had taught him that the United States was be- 
coming the dumping-ground of Europe. Arthur argued that 
"the refuge of the oppressed" need not be the sewage-basin 
of the imfit. 

A Gay Social Life at the White House. — In 1858 
Arthur had married a lady of twenty-one years, Ellen Lewis 
Herndon. They had a son and a daughter; but the mother 
had died in 1880. Arthur remained a widower. But with his 
sister, who was a widow, and his daughter (the son was at 
Princeton), he lived a gay life as President, entertaining and 
being entertained beyond any other tenant of the White 
House. His midnight suppers and revels were as famous as 
his beautiful four-in-hand and the other horses that he loved 
— to ride behind, for he never drove himself or rode in the 
saddle. 

His Cabinet. — 

State, — Frederick T. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. 

Treasury, — Charles J. Folger of New York, three years; 
Walter Q. Gresham of Indiana, one month, various ad interim. 

War, — Robert T. Lincoln of Illinois. 

Attorney-General, — Benjamin H. Brewster of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

Postmaster-General, — ^Timothy O. Howe of Wisconsin, 
one and a half years; Walter Q. Gresham, over one year; 
Frank Hatton of Iowa, a half year. 

Navy, — William E. Chandler of New Hampshire. 

Interior, — Henry M. Teller of Iowa, seven months ; Samuel 
J. Kirkwood of Colorado, three years. 

In 1884, believing that he had rendered good service, 
Arthur sought the nomination for President. But though at 
the start he made an excellent showing, quite beyond Tyler 
or Fillmore or Johnson, at the Republican Convention the 
vote on the first ballot stood: 

Blaine SS4j4, Arthur 278, miscellaneous i6o>4, and no 
choice. 

On the fourth ballot Blaine won. 

Early Death. — Though Arthur had spent his summers in 
a government residence at the Soldiers' Home In Washington, 
the climate had proven serious for a man of his physique. Once 



532 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

back in New York, a poor man, accustomed to free and high 
living, he soon became ill. His friends said that his heart was 
broken. At fifty-six years of age, upon November i8, 1886, 
the former President died of a complication of diseases. 

It seems probable that in New York State at least he would 
have been a stronger candidate against Cleveland than Blaine 
was; but in politics there are no ethics and in history no 
alternatives. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
(Stephen) Grover Cleveland 

1885-1889 

1893-1897 

,1837-1908 
39 States Population 59,000,000 

44-45 States 69,000,000 

Admitted: Utah> 

A strong President — personal appearance — comparisons with other Presi- 
dents — a gift of writing so as to be read — no office-seeker — early life — 
afloat as a boy — ^bad habits — Sheriff — private law practice — Mayor of 
Buffalo — Governor of New York by great vote — ^no spoilsman — won 
Presidency by very narrow margin — Blaine — villainous charges, some 
of them true— "Tell the truth"— "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion"— a 
civil service reformer — vetoed more bills than all other Presidents 
together — pensions — Inter-State Commerce Commission — the Presi- 
dential succession — Chinese Exclusion — marriage silenced certain 
scandals — defeated for President, though making great gain in the 
popular vote — practiced law in New York City — forest conservation — 
reelected — a political revolution, still more votes — ^the panic of 1893 — 
the coinage of silver — bond sales — Force Act formally repealed — 
hard times — strikes — refused to annex Hawaii — ^tariff-revision — income 
tax unconstitutional — the Venezuela boundary message — retired to 
Princeton — insurance company trustee — wrote several books — an out- 
doors man. 

A Strong President. — Indisputably, one of the half-dozen 
great Presidents, Cleveland displayed the powers of his office 
in time of peace. 

Personal Appearance and Some Characteristics. — 
Physically, he was the largest man to attain the Presidency 



GROVER CLEVELAND 533 

up to his time, — a larger man than George Washington, — and 
weighing over two hundred and fifty pounds. Like Arthur, he 
was the son of a clergyman. Like Tyler and Johnson, he had 
Congress always against him, and also' the party responsible 
for his election to office. Like Jefferson and Lincoln, he had 
the gift of writing. His sayings, — "A public office is a public 
trust," "Tell the truth," "The people support the government; 
but the government does not support the people," "A condition, 
not a theory, confronts us," — his expressions, "innocuous de- 
suetude," "since mankind first went to war," "the pension list 
a roll of honor," caught the public ear. His President's Mes- 
sages to Congress were read by the public with an interest 
and conviction known before only in the cases of Jefferson, of 
Jackson, and of Lincoln. He was no stylist. His English had 
none of the fluency of Jefferson's, little of the piquant charm 
of Lincoln's; but like Jackson he wrote with the force of ai 
fighter. It was not the English of a swordsman but of an 
artillerist, all his heavy batteries booming. Back of his words 
were deeds; and out of them rose prospects of deeds. 

Not an Office Seeker. — Cleveland never sought an office, 
— never sought either nomination or election. He was the 
least eager of men. He inspired confidence and justified it; 
often, he aroused rage and justified that also. Though he 
came from New York State, he never was a New York politi- 
cian or any other kind of politician. Whether right or wrong, 
he was a statesman and a great executive. He thought and 
acted in the large and not in the little, in sincerity and not in 
policy, for principles, not for persons. 

Early Life. — Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in the 
village of Caldwell, Essex County, northeastern New Jersey, 
on March 18. 1837. His father came of old colonial stock of 
descent from Moses Cleveland, who had emigrated from Eng- 
land to Massachusetts in 1835.^ In his capacity of Presby- 
terian clergyman, the Reverend Richard F. Cleveland soon 
moved into New York State where he died, when Grover, the 
fifth of nine children, was seventeen years old. The youth 
drifted about from one occupation and community to another 
until, in 1855, he arrived in a lawyer's office in Buffalo as a 
clerk on four dollars a week. In 1859 he was admitted to the 
bar. In 1863 he became by appointment assistant district at- 
torney of Erie County, which includes Buffalo. He took but 

^See pp. 88, 109, no, supra. 



534 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

little interest in the war, and when drafted, hired a substitute. 
At this time, neither his health nor his habits were good. In 
1865 he ran for the office of district attorney but was de- 
feated. His life at this period was coarse and bold. He drank 
hard and associated with persons not respectable. 

Sheriff of Erie County, New York. — In 1869 the Demo- 
cratic party of his county named him for the profitable office 
of sheriff. He was popular partly because of his rough man- 
ners, and though the county was normally Republican, was 
elected by a large majority. He retired in 1873 with a record 
for unusual efficiency and for scrupulous honesty in office. 
For the next eight years he devoted himself to the law, acquir- 
ing a good practice. His personal habits improved, and he 
grew in favor with the so-called better classes. 

In 1881 the Democrats of Bufifalo nominated him for 
mayor. Corruption and maladministration characterized the 
city government. As a reform candidate, the ex-sheriff won 
by a handsome vote. His administration was signally success- 
ful. The new mayor cleaned house under the law and pro- 
jected new laws. 

Governor of New York. — In the next year the Demo- 
cratic party of the State nominated Mayor Cleveland of Buf- 
falo for governor. Against a weak candidate, at a period of 
dissension between the Stalwarts and the Halfbreeds, Cleve- 
land won a tremendous victory. The Stalwart candidate was 
C. J. Folger, at the time Secretary of the Treasury under 
Arthur. "Federal interferences with State elections" was the 
battle-cry. Cleveland's plurality was 193,000. 

As governor, Cleveland chose business men for the ap- 
pointive offices, not politicians nor political heelers. He urged 
successfully a civil service reform law. He vetoed freely 
measures that he did not like. He had been a good sheriff, 
and a better mayor. He was one of the best governors in the 
history of New York State. 

Nominated for President. — In 1884 the Democratic party 
was hungry for power at Washington. At the National Con- 
vention, Governor Cleveland had over twice as many votes 
on the first ballot as his next competitor, but under the two- 
thirds rule not quite enough to win. On the second ballot he 
had nearly all the votes, and the nomination was made unani- 
mous. As his running mate, Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana 



GROVER CLEVELAND 535 

,was chosen. He had been the candidate with Tilden at the 
time of the "fraud of 1876"; and his nomination, it was 
thought, would hold all the party men while Cleveland's name 
would attract the reformers and "Mugwumps," as the inde- 
pendent Republicans were styled. 

James G. Blaine, the Plumed Knight of Maine. — The 
Republicans named James G. Blaine and John A. Logan. The 
latter was one of the ablest men developed by the Interstate 
War. 

Blaine was a journalist who had taken a prominent part in 
Congress during the Interstate War, and was now regarded as 
the first of the Republican leaders. At this time, he was 
Senator-elect from Maine. 

Our Most Scurrilous Campaign, — There ensued the 
most bitter and villainous of the Presidential campaigns in 
the history of this country. It was proven that Cleveland was 
the father of a natural son by one Maria Halpin; the boy was 
then a dozen years old. Cleveland calmly said to his managers, 
"Tell the truth !" j 

This frankness won for him the support of the brilliant 
preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, and saved him many votes. 
It was generally known that the same case could be proven 
against Blaine also, but Cleveland resolutely set his face against 
such a counter-attack. The fact that he had sent another man 
than himself to be shot at by the Confederates, at a cost of 
three hundred dollars in bounty paid, was used with damaging 
effect against Cleveland. But the charges against Blaine as 
a member of Congress were numerous, and though at the time 
not fully proven, helped to his defeat. The charges mainly 
concerned the transcontinental railroad propositions. Similar 
charges were made against Logan also. 

The Main Issue. — But the election turned, on the whole, 
upon the large issue that Cleveland represented the new ideas 
of honest, economical and efficient government, while Blaine 
represented the old Civil War ideas. Cleveland was "a new 
man" ; Blaine had a long record. 

The Spoke in the Wheel of Fortune. — Cleveland stayed 
at home and let the workers carry on the struggle. But Blaine 
made a marvellous campaign, speaking upon hundreds of occa- 
sions in many States. He was tired and proposed to rest in 
New York. There at a banquet on October 29, a few days 



536 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

before the election, Reverend Doctor Burchard, aged and ven- 
erable, arose and in a dull toast said that the Democratic party 
represented "rum, Romanism, and rebellion." Blaine, who 
was weary and inattentive, failed to catch the phrase and to 
repudiate it; in other words, apparently he acquiesced in it 
Next day the country rang with the phrase. Some papers 
even said that Blaine himself had uttered it. His own wife 
was a Roman Catholic, but this did not save him. It was a cam- 
paign "roorback," too late to be answered. Cleveland carried 
New York State by scarcely looo votes. That the Burchard 
remark changed 600 votes from Blaine to Cleveland, no politi- 
cal observer doubts. Those less than 600 votes cost him the 
Presidency, for with New York Cleveland had in the Electoral 
College 219 votes to 182. Had New York gone to Blaine, he 
would have had 216 to 185. 

It was, of course, true that the Democratic party had in it 
far more Secessionists and Copperheads than the Republican ; 
but that it distinctly represented rum or Romanism or rebellion 
as against the Republicans for temperance or Protestantism 
or unionism was false. This remark put into the Presidency a 
bedrock serious man instead of a statesman of high imagina- 
tion, a political genius. It was a crisis in our history. Blaine 
would have gone in for internationalism ; Cleveland went in for 
domestic improvement. 

The Cabinet of Cleveland. — For his Cabinet, the first 
Democrat since Buchanan, chose able men. Its membership 
was as follows, viz. : 

State, — Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware. 

Treasury, — Daniel Manning of New York, two years; 
Charles S. Fairchild of New York, two years. 

War, — William C. Endicott of Massachusetts. 

Attorney-General, — Augustus H. Garland of Arkansas. 

Postmaster-General, — William F. Vilas of Wisconsin, nearly 
three years ; Don M. Dickinson of Michigan, over one year. 

Navy, — William C. Whitney of New York. 

Interior, — L. Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi, nearly three 
years ; William F. Vilas, over one year. 

Agriculture (a new Department), — Norman J. Coleman of 
Missouri, three weeks. 

Great Strength and Force. — The new President had the 
Pendleton Civil Service Act to carry out.^ To its express pro- 

*See pp. 533, 534, supra. 



GROVER CLEVELAND 537 

visions for the clerks of lowest grade, he added 12,000 offices, 
nearly fifty per cent, more than the original quota. He vetoed 
413 bills, of which about 300 were private pensions for indi- 
viduals. This was more than all his predecessors together. 
The most important bill concerned soldiers' dependents; it 
seemed to open the doors to fraud. The argument for many 
pensions was that the nation owes its life to the soldiers of 
1861-65; and that the promises held out in order to secure 
enlistments after 1862 were golden. Many men stayed at 
home, and some of these grew rich. But the arguments against 
pensions were stronger with Cleveland than were those for 
them. Patriotism is never mercenary. The dependents, save 
bona Ude wives, orphans and widows of that period, had no 
ethical claim. History, as judged by the just, is likely to say 
that the United States after 1865 paid too many pensions and 
too small ones. Cleveland seldom vetoed pensions because they 
were too large. 

In his annual message of 1887, he attacked the revenue policy 
by which a great surplus was being accumulated in the treas- 
ury. The Mills bill for reducing the tariff followed, but was 
defeated in the Senate. 

Interstate Commerce. — This Forty-ninth Congress, 
however, passed the Interstate Commerce Act appointing a 
Commission, since grown to enormous powers, to maintain 
fair and uniform rates on all railroads and steamboat lines 
between States. 

The Presidential Succession. — During this first admin- 
istration, owing to the death of Vice-President Hendricks in 
1885, Congress fixed the Presidential Succession as follows, — 
viz. : After the Vice-President, the Secretaries of State, Treas- 
ury, War, Attorney-General, Postmaster-General, the Secre- 
taries of the Navy and of the Interior. This was the historical 
order of their creation. Only an epidemic disease, an explo- 
sion when all were present, or a similar catastrophe, could re- 
move all of these officers so fast as to prevent their replace- 
ment so that the Presidency should be vacant even one day. 
In this same administration. Congress determined that in the 
case of any dispute over a vote in the Electoral College, the 
State Involved should decide it; If the State declines or other- 
wise fails to do so, then Congress decides. 

In 1888 Congress passed a new Chinese Exclusion Act, 



538 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

which, being renewed in 1892 and in 1902, has completely shut 
out the race. In the same year, upon the death of Waite, 
Cleveland appointed Melville W. Fuller of Chicago, Chief 
Justice. He was a brilliant railroad lawyer without much fame. 

Renominated. — In this year the Democratic party renomi- 
nated Cleveland, though not without opposition, and with him 
named for Vice-President Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, a vet- 
eran politician, then seventy-five years old. He had been Chief 
Justice of his State and for many years United States Senator. 
His war-period utterances hurt the ticket. 

A Tariff Campaign. — Against Cleveland and Thurman, 
the Republicans nominated Harrison and Morton. The cam- 
paign was conducted with dignity. The cry against the private 
morals of the President was silenced because in 1886 he had 
married Frances G. Folsom, the beautiful and highly intelligent 
daughter of a Buffalo law-partner of Cleveland's. Judge 
Folsom was dead, but the people came to the conclusion that 
if his widow and his daughter could approve sufficiently of 
Cleveland now for this marriage to take place, earlier matters 
were of private concern with no farther interest to them. 

The campaign turned almost solely upon the tariff. The 
Electoral College voted 233 for Harrison against 168 for 
Cleveland. 

In 1884 the popular votes had been: 

Cleveland 4,874,986, Blaine 4,851,981. 

In 1888 it was: 

Cleveland 5,540,329, Harrison 5,439»853- 

In 1892 it was destined to be: 

Cleveland 5,556,543, Harrison 5,175,582, Weaver 1,040,886. 

A Narrow Defeat. — It was a surprising jugglery due to 
the federalism of our system that Cleveland should gain 
665,343 votes and have a plurality over Harrison of 100,476 
and yet lose the Presidency by a vote of 4 to 3 in the Electoral 
College. When he left the White House, his yotmg wife re- 
quested the servants to take good care of it, for "we're coming 
back in just four years." Cleveland went to New York city 
to practice law, and in those four years added 16,214 friends. 
' His removal to New York city was due to calls from 
bankers and merchants there. His opposition to the free coin- 
age of silver, his saving of 100,000,000 acres of the public 
lands to actual settlers, and his free-trade ideas had brought 



GROVER CLEVELAND 539 

him favor with certain capitalists there. He took no part in 
poHtics, but went quietly about the business of earning a living. 

A Third Nomination. — In 1892 the Democratic party in- 
sisted upon his running a third time. With him they named 
for Vice-President Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, a singularly 
colorless candidate, who had served two terms in Congress in 
the seventies and had been first assistant postmaster-general in 
the administration of Cleveland. It seems probable that few 
persons expected to see the Democrats win, for Populism was 
at its height; and it was believed that this great socialistic 
movement would damage the Democratic party. 

In the Electoral College, after a quiet campaign save for the 
People's party, which had nominated James B. Weaver of 
Iowa, formerly a Greenback man, the Electoral votes stood : 

Cleveland 2^], Harrison 145, Weaver 22. 

The Cleveland Victory Analyzed. — The result was to 
be understood only in the light of the facts, first, that after 
trying Cleveland one term and Harrison one tenn, the people 
in the ratio of 11 to 10 liked Cleveland better, and, second, 
that in the same ratio they were ready for tariff revision and 
money-changes, while out of every 23 voters, 2 desired neither 
Cleveland nor Harrison but an experimentalist. The Vice- 
Presidential candidate was James G. Field of Virginia, a 
lawyer, whose nomination helped Populism in the South. 

It was a startling fact that while the popular vote had been, 
— counting all the small parties, — about ten and a half millions 
in 1889, it had grown to twelve millions in 1892. Evidently, 
the people were taking a far greater interest in politics. Some 
kind of political revolution portended. The vote had gained 
33 per cent, in eight )'-ears, the population but 16 per cent. The 
Democratic party had won handsomely; and, in 1893, the 
President had both Houses of Congress with him. It was the 
first Democratic Government since i860. 

The second administration of Cleveland was far more event- 
ful than his first, and showed him in an even brighter light. 
But it recorded also several mistakes. 

More Civil Service Reform. — One of the fine acts was to 
add 44,000 places to the competitive examination civil service 
lists, making 87,000 places in all, removed from the spoils 
system. Of course, one result is that by 19 12 our Departments 
have many superannuated clerks. The only forward remedy 



540 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

is the civil list with pensions ; it is a remedy with some serious 
by-results. 

The Second Cabinet of Cleveland. — For the premier of 
his second Cabinet, Cleveland took a man whom he had tried 
in two Departments in his first administration. 

State, — Walter Q. Gresham of Illinois, two years ; Richard 
Olney of Massachusetts, two years. 

Treasury, — John G. Carlisle of Kentucky. 

Attorney-General, — Richard Olney, two years; Judson 
Harmon of Ohio, two years. 

Postmaster-General, — Wilson S. Bissell of New York, two 
years ; William L. Wilson of West Virginia, two years. 

Navy, — Hilary A. Herbert of Alabama. 

Interior, — Hoke Smith of Georgia, over three years ; David 
R. Francis of Missouri, less than one year. 

Agriculture, — ^J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska. 

The Panic of 1893. — In 1893 a financial panic fell upon 
the country. It was such a crash as Cleveland had predicted 
from the excessive coinage of silver.^ 

Three hundred banks failed; one quarter of the railways 
of the country went into the hands of receivers. Thousands 
and tens of thousands of business men were ruined; employees 
went without wages; and death stalked abroad in the land. 
Foreign investors sold our securities, believing that we were 
to go upon the silver basis, — a silver dollar was then worth 67 
cents in gold. In the United States Treasury and in circula- 
tion, we had six hundred millions in silver, with three hun- 
dred and fifty millions of legal tender money. Cleveland called 
a special session of Congress in August, 1893. In November 
the Purchase Act was repealed, though many Democrats were 
pro-silver. 

The Bond Sales. — In April, 1893, the legal reserve of 
$100,000,000 in gold to protect the Government's fiat money 
and coin certificates had been broken by the drains upon it, 
due to heavy appropriations, to revenue deficits, and to calls 
for intrinsic money of redemption. To buy gold for the re- 
serve, the Government issued bonds of high denomination in 
various amounts, — in all, $162,000,000. The bonds were sold 
in blocks to metropolitan bankers, who immediately made 
profits by selling them to the public. The criticism that the 
bonds should have been of low denomination and sold directly 

*See pp. 103, 518, supra. 



GROVER CLEVELAND 541 

to the public was general at the time ; such bonds stay sold and 
thereby stiffen the money market. 

This Congress also repealed the Force Act of 1871 by which 
the Federal courts were impowered to protect the ballot, troops 
might be sent to the polls, and the writ of habeas corpus sus- 
pended/ 

Great Social Distress. — The years 1893 ^"*i i894 saw 
great distress. Coxey "armies" of the unemployed marched 
to Washington and to various State Capitals ; they called them- 
selves "soldiers of the Commonwealth of Christ." Strikes and 
riots occurred in and near Chicago, to which point the Presi- 
dent sent troops to protect the United States mails, though the 
Governor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, said that the soldiers 
were not needed and that this action was Federal interference 
with State's rights. 

Hawaii had a revolution and applied for annexation; but 
Cleveland would consent only to recognize the overthrow of 
the monarchy and the setting up of the Republic. 

The Tariff. — He also refused to sign the Wilson-Gorman 
tariff, objecting to it because it was not sufficiently drastic and 
as a rider carried an income tax provision. The bill became 
law without his signature ; but the United States Supreme 
Court declared the form of income tax proposed unconstitu- 
tional. 

The Admission of Utah. — In January, 1896, Utah was 
admitted into the Union. There was a long controversy in 
Utah, in Congress and among the people regarding this action. 
Utah was practically synonymous with Mormonism ; and Mor- 
monism, with polygamy ;; and polygamy, with Brigham Young, 
the Vermont painter and glazier turned leader and prophet, 
whose twenty-five wives and fifty or more children scarcely 
met American standards of social conduct. These were in 
fact less children than twenty-six married persons usually 
have. Almost nothing is as it seems, — polygamy reduces the 
birthrate. Young deprived twenty- four men of wives and 
children. But it was believed by many opponents of Mormonism 
that Statehood would help the Gentiles more than the Latter- 
Day Saints. And with all its history of fraud, superstition 
and bloodshed, of industry and social cooperation, Utah came 
into the Union. 

The Venezuelan Message. — Dramatic as had been the 

*See pp. 502, 503, supra. 



542 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

intervention of Cleveland in the Pullman strike at Chicago, 
he now did something far more dramatic. Great Britain re- 
fused to arbitrate her boundary with Venezuela, whereupon 
the President sent a tremendous message to Congress, defend- 
ing the Monroe Doctrine and advising that body to appoint a 
commission to determine the boundary itself. Great Britain 
roared in reply in true lion-style. Stocks fell. A panic threat- 
ened. War seemed imminent. Congress appointed commis- 
sioners, whereupon Great Britain agreed to arbitrate. 

Split in the Democratic Party. — Then the party con- 
ventions were held. The Republicans kept together, but the 
Democrats split. Most of them supported the regular party 
candidates, but Cleveland and every member of his Cabinet 
save Hoke Smith of Georgia, Secretary of the Interior, who 
resigned, gave their support to the National or "Sound Money" 
Democrats, the lesser body. 

Influential in Retirement. — After his term expired, 
Cleveland went back to his native State, choosing Princeton 
as his home. There he was a trustee of the University and a 
lecturer on public affairs. He became prominent in the re- 
organization of the immense Equitable Life Insurance Com- 
pany of New York, and was referee for it and for its two 
rivals, the Mutual Life and the New York Life. He also 
wrote two books, one on "Presidential Problems," the other 
entitled "Fishing and Hunting Sketches," a work that showed 
how he had learned to lay aside political cares from time to 
time and like Washington alone among his predecessors refresh 
himself in outdoor life. He died at Princeton, June 24, 1908, 
in a general breakdown, leaving a widow, three daughters and 
one son. His property, consisting of but his house there and 
of investments made of his savings as President and as lawyer, 
was so small an amount as to set finally at rest the notion that 
he had benefited by millions from the bond issues of 1893. 

Cleveland Democracy Established. — In solidity of judg- 
ment and in courage of opinion, in thorough study of every 
piece of legislation submitted to him, and in understanding of 
men for office, Grover Cleveland was the equal of any other 
President. Only Lincoln worked harder when in office. His 
limitations were his lack of sympathy with the weak and the 
poor and a corresponding regard for the successful. He was 
by no means brilliant. But at his hands, Democratic theory 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 543 

and practice advanced beyond Jeffersonian Democracy and 
Jacksonian Democracy. Cleveland National Democracy as 
exemplified from 1885 to 1897 niade a new high v^^ater mark 
of personal responsibility for our politics and government. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Benjamin Harrison 

1889-1893 
1833-1901 

38-44 States 1890 — Population 62,622,250 

Admitted : North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washing- 
ton, Idaho, Wyoming. 

The sandwich President — personal characteristics — "a favorite son" — an- 
cestry — educated at Miami University — lawyer — court crier — mar- 
riage — colonel — brigadier-general — good war-record — Indiana Supreme 
Court reporter — defeated for governorship — United States Senator — 
defeated for reelection — a dark horse — the Vice-Presidential candi- 
date — our federal system — President — Pan-American Congress — Mc- 
Kinley Tariff Act — commercial treaties — prices raised — pensions 
doubled — six new States — equal suffrage — Sherman Coinage Acr — 
"free silver" — Mormon issues — Homestead Strike — the Vice-Presi- 
dential "rich man" candidate — Louisiana Lottery — international affairs 
—seal fisheries — law practice — university lecturer — Venezuelan counsel 
at Paris — wrote two books — an excellent lawyer — compared with Van 
Buren — and Cleveland — not an advocate of great principles — above 
the average President, 

The Sandwich President. — Benjamin Harrison was the 
sandwich President, whose predecessor was his successor. In 
1888 a former President ran against a renominated President 
in office, — a situation unique in our histor}^ Physically, the 
shortest man in height who was ever President, his greater 
rival was next to the largest of all our Presidents. He was the 
only President who was the grandson of another. No other 
one-term President since manhood suffrage came in was ever 
renominated only to be defeated save Cleveland, and he was 
twice renominated, failing at the second of three elections. 



544 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Like Grant, Benjamin Harrison was short, stout, and 
reticent. Like Van Buren, he was an excellent lawyer. Like 
Tyler, he lost his wife when President. Like J. Q. Adams, 
he was a lineal descendant of a President. 

Early Life on the Harrison Farm. — Benjamin Harri- 
son was bom at North Bend, near Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 
22, 1833. This was just after the recall of his grandfather, 
William Henry Harrison, from his brief term as Minister to 
Columbia, and at that period when life looked dark to the old 
man who is his day had rendered valiant service to his country. 
Benjamin's father was John Scott Harrison, then twenty-seven 
years old, and destined to serve a term in Congress — 1853-57. 

Educated at Miami University. — They all lived together 
upon the Harrison farm. Benjamin went to a log schoolhouse 
nearby. He studied for college under a tutor; then attended 
an institution known as "The Farmers' College" and finally 
entered Miami University, the best educational institution of 
the period in Ohio, and in 1852 was graduated there. He 
proceeded to Cincinnati to study law with Bellamy Storer, 
already famous and destined to higher rank as a lawyer and 
judge. In 1853 Benjamin Harrison was admitted to the bar, 
though not yet of age; soon he married Caroline Lavinia Scott, 
and removed to Indianapolis. Being poor, he was made court- 
crier at two and a half dollars a day; but being clever and 
diligent, he soon attracted clients. 

Fine Military Record. — Enlisting in the Interstate War 
in 1862, Harrison soon became colonel. He saw service under 
Buell and Sherman, and as a commander of brigade took im- 
portant parts in the Kenesaw Mountain, Peach Tree Creek, 
and Nashville battles. When mustered out in January, 1865, 
he was breveted brigadier-general for "ability, energy and gal- 
lantry." It was a fine record for a young man of thirty-one 
years. 

United States Senator. — Upon the ending of the war, 
General Harrison returned to Indiana, becoming Supreme 
Court reporter in 1864 as he had been in i860- 1862. He con- 
tinued in this line until 1868. Court-reporting, though an ex- 
ceptionally fine training for a jurist, ends most men's careers 
in law-practice and in politics. But in 1876 Harrison became 
candidate for governor of Indiana only to be defeated. Gar- 
field offered him a place in his Cabinet in 1881, but he declined 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 545 

in order to serve as a member of the United States Senate. 
There he opposed President Cleveland vigorously. 

Nominated for President. — Defeated in an effort to 
secure reelection to the Senate, the Republican party seized 
upon him for the Presidential nomination as a forlorn hope, 
the dark horse to win the race. The first ballot in the Con- 
vention had been John Sherman 229, W. Q. Gresham iii, 
C, M. Depew 99, and 14 others from 84 to 3 each. Harrison 
had 80 votes. The eighth ballot stood : 

Harrison 554, Sherman 118, Alger 100, Gresham 59, 
Blaine 5, McKinley 4. 

On the first ballot, Levi P. Morton of New York State was 
named for the Vice-Presidency by 561 votes out 884. 

Morton was a Boston-New York banker who had been sent 
as Minister to France by Garfield. 

Harrison and Morton defeated Cleveland and Thurman 
because our country is not a nation but a federation of States. 
Otherwise, a great popular majority in New York city might 
steadily offset the majority opinions of all or nearly all of the 
rural States. The federal system is not perfect, but it is far 
better than a national government highly centralized could be. 

The Cabinet of Harrison. — For the premier of his Cabi- 
net, the President chose the party leader. 

State, — James G. Blaine of Maine, over three years; John 
W. Foster, eight months. 

Treasury, — William Windom of Minnesota, two years; 
Charles Foster of Ohio, two years. 

War, — Redfield Proctor of Vermont, over two years; 
Stephen B. Elkins of West Virginia, under two years. 

Attorney-General. — W. H. H. Miller of Indiana. 

Postmaster-General, — John Wanamaker of Pennsylvania. 

Navy, — Benjamin F. Tracy of New York. 

Interior, — John W. Noble of Missouri. 

Agriculture, — Jeremiah M. Rusk of Wisconsin. 

South American Relations. — The Pan-American Con- 
gress notion, first broached by John Quincy Adams, was now 
revived by Blaine.^ This brought the Monroe Doctrine again 
prominently before the country. A brilliant policy of South 
American relations was inaugurated which matured in the 
Exposition at Buffalo where McKinley was assassinated. It 
finds another expression in the Bureau of American Republics, 

*See pp. 535 et seq., supra. 



546 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

whose building at Washington was donated by the steel three- 
hundred millionaire Andrew Carnegie in 1907. 

The McKinley Tariff. — President Harrison encouraged 
the passage of the McKinley Tariff Act, by which it was de- 
signed to give tariff protection to the American farmer as well 
as to the American manufacturer. The general notion was to 
reduce the revenue on imports by making many of the tariff 
duties prohibitive. This was the perfect flower of the "Ameri- 
can system" as originally advocated by Henry Clay and the 
Whigs. ^ This Act carried with it certain provisions for a 
strange kind of reciprocity with other nations. Certain articles 
on the free list might be placed back upon the tax list in case 
other countries that exported these did not favor American 
exports. This Tariff led to several commercial treaties with 
European and South American countries. It delighted the 
protected manufacturers. The average duties were 48.2 per 
cent., the highest then known in our history. It raised prices 
nearly all around, — farmers got more, manufacturers got more, 
miners got more, all getting from one another. Only the pro- 
fessional classes, the clerks and the wage-earners in unpro- 
tected industries suffered. 

Cleveland had vetoed a bill returning to the States $16,- 
000,000 collected from them for the Interstate War ; Harrison 
signed a similar bill. 

Pensions. — Cleveland had vetoed the dependent pension 
bill; Harrison urged its passage again. It doubled the list of 
pensioners, — from a half million to a million. From 1861 to 
1889, pension payments in all were $1,000,000,000. From 
1889 to 1897, under the new Act, they were another $1,000,- 
000,000. (In 1 910 we paid $156,000,000.) 

The New Northwest Secures Statehood. — As Chair- 
man of Committee in the Senate, Benjamin Harrison had 
urged the admission of new States. Now came in 1889 the 
astonishing increase of four great States, — North Dakota, 
South Dakota, Montana, Washington, — and in 1890 of two, 
Idaho and Wyoming. The total area was nearly 570,000 
square miles, a region greatly exceeding all the Original Thir- 
teen States, not including their "claims." It was nine times 
New England. Some day this Northwest will have a popula- 
tion many times all New England. Will it then be content 
with one-ninth as many Senators? Will there be a West 

^See pp. 106, 533, supra. 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 547 

against East as there was a South against the North, and for 
much the same reason, inequahty and gerrymander in the 
Senate ? Will the Senate go ? Or will the two Senators per 
State plan go? Or will these great Western States split up? 

In Wyoming in 1890, there was already equal suffrage for 
men and women ; and now Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, 
and California all have equal suffrage. How soon will the 
Solid South or the Solid East be broken by "votes for women?" 

Silver Currency. — In 1890 Congress passed the Sherman 
Coinage Act, directing the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of 
silver (140 tons) each month, 2,000,000 to be coined into dol- 
lars. Sherman advocated this in order to defeat "free silver." 
By 1893 silver had fallen still further so that a "dollar" in 
silver was worth 51 cents. The silver-mine owners, who were 
trying with government help to keep up the price, then vir- 
tually surrendered. 

MoRMONiSM. — In 1890 a general conference of the Mor- 
mon Church pledged that immense body to give up polygamy. 
Thereupon by proclamation the President granted to the Mor- 
mons civil and political amnesty, and restored to them church 
property confiscated under the Edmunds-Tucker Act passed in 
the first administration of Cleveland. It was characteristic 
ecclesiastico-political trickery. 

The Homestead Strike. — In 1892 a furious strike raged 
at the works of the Carnegie Steel Company, Homestead, 
Pennsylvania. There were battles between the strikers and 
detectives hired by the company. The strikers lost. This 
affair cost Harrison many votes, for it showed the working- 
men how little protective tariffs helped them. 

In that summer Harrison was renominated with Whitelaw 
Reid as his running mate for Vice-President, an Ohio man by 
birth, like Harrison. He owned and edited the "New York 
Tribune," succeeding Horace Greeley.^ By his own accumula- 
tion and by marriage, he was rich. His wife was the daughter 
of the California millionaire, D. O. Mills. Reid had been 
Minister to France under Harrison. 

Good Items in the Record. — In many matters, Harrison 
had made a good record. The Louisiana Lottery had been sup- 
pressed. The navy had been enlarged. The United States had 
called an international money-conference. A controversy had 
been settled peacefully with Chili, and another over Samoa 

^See pp. 507, 508, supra. 



548 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

with Germany. The Bering Sea and Strait open sea seal fish' 
eries disputed with England had been arbitrated with rea- 
sonable satisfaction. The national debt had been reduced. The 
times had been fairly prosperous. But the Homestead strike 
had stirred the labor unions against the Republican party, and 
Harrison himself had failed to appeal picturesquely to the 
people. They desired Cleveland again. 

Another matter, entirely of private life, helped the down- 
fall of Harrison. Mrs. Harrison had died at the White House, 
and it was commonly believed that a niece of hers who had 
lived there with them, a widow, Mrs. Mary Scott Lord 
Dimock, was likely to marry the widower. Without much 
open discussion of the matter, some independent voters who 
don't like to see a widower marry a deceased wife's sister or 
other near blood-relative, quietly preferred Cleveland. The 
anticipated marriage took place in 1896. 

Reid, as Vice-Presidential candidate, added nothing to the 
popular strength of the ticket, which was overwhelmingly 
defeated in the November elections. 

In Private Life. — Harrison then returned to the practice 
of the law at Indianapolis. Incidentally, he gave lectures on 
international law and jurisprudence at several great univer- 
sities. In 1898 the Government of Venezuela retained him as 
leading counsel in its dispute with Great Britain. He made a 
dignified appearance in Paris, and his argument was consid- 
ered able and conclusive. He heartily disapproved of the 
policy of the Republican party after the Spanish War. In these 
last years of his life, he wrote two books, — one on government, 
and another entitled "Views of an ex-President." He died at 
Indianapolis March 13, 1901, of pneumonia, at sixty-seven 
years of age, leaving a son and a daughter by his first wife 
and a daughter by his second. His property was large, for 
a President, being some two or three hundred thousand dol- 
lars acquired as a lawyer. 

An Excellent Lawyer. — Harrison was a man of brief 
speech, self-contained like Grant, than whom he was a far 
better President. He was in no sense a politician, but he was 
scarcely a statesman. He was in fact a competent lawyer, 
a diligent man of business, and a loyal friend. His place as 
President is properly above the median. He was perhaps 
not quite so good a President as Martin Van Buren, whom as 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 549 

a lawyer, however, he closely resembled. But for the conjunc- 
tion of fate that brought him against Grover Cleveland, he 
would probably have had two terms in succession, and yet he 
had too little popular strength to secure in 1896 a third nomi- 
nation, such as Cleveland had. For a long life in politics, the 
advocacy of great measures is almost essential. The principle 
keeps the name of the man before the public. In politics Ben- 
jamin Harrison never advocated anything, but rather served 
as judge of issues and arbiter between factions and interests. 



CHAPTER XXV 
William McKinley 

1897-1901 

1843-1901 

45 States 1900 — Population 76,304,799 

The best politician ever in Washington — very kind manners — ancestry — 
early life — educated at Alleghany College — school teacher — major — 
outdoor life — Albany Law School — prosecuting attorney — marriage — 
domestic sorrows — Representative in Congress — defeated by gerry- 
mander — Governor of Ohio — high tariff advocate — influential in Con- 
gress — the McKinley Act — riots — Chairman Republican' Convention — 
straddled money question — ^bankrupt — President — William Jennings 
Bryan — the Gold Democrats — enormous campaign funds — "a full 
dinner pail" — his backer, M. A. Hanna, made United States Senator 
— the Dingley Tariff — Spain in Cuba — "Avenge the Maine !" — war de- 
clared — naval victories — the Philippine Islands — Porto Rico — $20,000,- 
000 paid to Spain — the scandals of the War Department — four war- 
heroes, Dewey, Sampson, Schley and Roosevelt — Aguinaldo^ — W. H. 
Taft — Hawaii annexed — with the allies in China — John Hay — ^im- 
perialism — trusts — money — another Bryan defeat — Cuban protection — 
assassination — McKinley a growing man — left no property. 

A Complete Politician. — The ninth man to receive two 
terms in the Presidency by election was William McKinley 
of Ohio. It is commonly said that he was "the best politician 
ever in Washington." Only Lincoln was a better politician, 
but he was a statesman also, which McKinley never quite was, 
and yet was coming to be in the fatal year of his passing. He 
was also one of the most charming men socially whom the 



550 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

public life of the country ever knew. There was indeed about 
the Presidency in the days of Washington an air that no 
other President ever secured, — the air of the court and of 
princes and nobles. But the White House never knew a more 
gracious gentleman than McKinley; and it has known men of 
rare and gentle manners, — such as Madison, Van Buren, 
Pierce, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur. 

Like Jackson and Lincoln, McKinley knew how the people 
felt, — he looked into his own heart. 

Early Life. — William McKinley was born of Scotch-Irish 
stock.^ His first forefather in America was an emigrant from 
County Antrim, in Ireland, about 1743, settling in Pennsyl- 
vania. The President was his great grandson, born in Niles, 
Trumbull County, Ohio, January 29, 1843. His mother was 
Nancy Campbell Allison. Of their nine children, William 
was the seventh. The father and grandfather were iron manu- 
facturers in a small way. Because William was a pale, sickly, 
and delicate child, he was encouraged to go to school and col- 
lege. But his health broke down completely at Allegheny 
College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, and he came home and taught 
school when seventeen years of age. 

Army Life. — In 1861 McKinley promptly enlisted in the 
23d Ohio Volunteers and saw four years of service, beginning 
as a private and ending as a major. At Antietam Private 
McKinley carried pails of hot coffee and food to the men on 
the firing line down by the creek, and was made second lieu- 
tenant for bravery. His courage at Winchester raised him to 
be Captain. He served gallantly also at Cedar Creek and be- 
came Major. Generals George Crook and Rutherford B. 
Hayes both knew him as a brave youth. The four years of 
outdoor army life, mainly in the Virginian mountains and 
highlands, had given him perfect health. 

Lawyer. — His parents were now living at Poland, Ohio; 
but he left there to study in the law school at Albany, N. Y., 
where, beside law, he learned something of the ways of New 
York politicians. In 1867 he was admitted to the bar at 
Warren, Ohio ; but he preferred to go to Canton to practice in 
order to be with an older sister who was a public school teacher 

^That is, Saxons who livedT successively in Germany, Scotland and Ire- 
land and constituted one-half of all our stock prior to 1850. They have 
little or no Celtic blood. 



• WILLIAM McKINLEY 551 

there. Immediately he went into poHtical work as a Republican 
campaign speaker. In 1869 he was elected prosecuting attor- 
ney, but was defeated for reelection in 187 1. In 1875 he 
emerged from private practice as a lawyer and canvassed for 
General Hayes as Republican candidate for governor. 

Domestic Sorrow. — In 1871 he had married Ida Saxton. 
Sorrow came to them in the loss of their two children. There- 
after his wife was a lifelong semi-invalid. 

Congressman and Lawyer. — In 1876 Major McKinley, at 
thirty-three years of age, was elected to Congress by 3300 
majority. He was reelected in 1878 and in 1880, elected in 
1882 by 8 majority but unseated by a Democratic House late 
in the two-year term, and then reelected continuously, serving 
until 1890 when he was defeated. In 1891 he was elected 
Governor of Ohio by 21,000 plurality in 795,000 votes cast; 
and reelected in 1893. 

Again and again, hostile Democratic Legislatures had gerry- 
mandered his Congressional District. At last by an amazing 
corkscrew arrangement of precincts, in 1890, they overpowered 
him and thereby later made him Governor and President. 
Sometimes an outrage is good political capital.^ 

High Tariff Protectionist. — In Congress McKinley was 
a true representative of the political powers in his district; 
which was high tariff because engaged heavily in manufactur- 
ing. A high tariff is a subsidy levied by a government upon 
a people and automatically and yet secretly collected in ordi- 
nary trade-channels for the benefit of a few, who are always 
delighted by the privilege. 

The diligence of Major McKinley in studying all industrial 
questions brought him into high favor with James G. Blaine. 
When Garfield became President, McKinley succeeded him 
upon the Ways and Means Committee. In 1889 he became 
Chairman of that Committee. Three ballots were required 
to detennine whether or not Thomas B. Reed of Maine 
should be Speaker. Reed was a man of terrific force and 
of caustic wit; McKinley was suave and friendly. Reed 
won. In this Congress, McKinley introduced the measure 
known as the "McKinley Bill," relating to the tariff. It had 
many interesting features. By it the infant tin-plate industry 
was built up. A prohibitive tariff at its best is a method of 
forcing consumers to contribute through high prices the capi- 

^See pp. 356, 357, 37i, S29, S30, supra. 



552 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

tal requisite to build up a new business. It is a forced popular 
indirect subsidy, all the more dangerous for being indirect, 
like the national system of taxation. The McKinley tariff 
also gave direct bounties to American sugar growers. 

This Act stirred all Europe, and forced Gennany to admit 
American pork. In America it resulted in Democratic victories 
in the Congressional elections of 1890, McKinley himself 
went down. 

As Governor he used the troops of the State twice to quell 
labor riots. But otherwise his administration was uneventful. 

A National Leader. — In 1892, at the National Republican 
Convention at Minneapolis, McKinley presided. On the first 
ballot, for the Presidential nomination, he had 182 votes, 
Blaine 182 5/6, and Harrison the rest. In 1896, though out 
of office, the Republican party looked upon McKinley as their 
logical standard-bearer. He had no personal enemies. Blaine 
had died in January, 1893; and the leadership had fallen to 
McKinley. On the money question he could be quoted either 
way, for his utterances were Delphic. He was an Ohio man, 
and the party desired to carry Ohio, 

A Bankrupt. — Moreover, he was bankrupt, owing, through 
unfortunate business associations, something over two hundred 
thousand dollars beyond his assets; but Marcus A. Hanna, 
who was a multimillionaire ironmaster and shipowner, was 
McKinley's friend. Hanna wished to go deeper into politics, 
and he did. He financed McKinley and became the power 
behind the throne. 

Nominated for President. — On the first ballot, Major 
McKinley had 661^ out of 906 votes. The convention adopted 
a tariff plank drafted by McKinley, and a currency plank in 
favor of the "gold standard." This drove all silver men out 
of the party. For Vice-President, Garrett A. Hobart of New 
Jersey was selected to run. He was a rich lawyer, who had 
been prominent in the New Jersey Legislature for years. 

The Rise of Bryan. — The Democratic party at once joined 
issue with the Republican. It selected a brilliant young orator, 
William Jennings Bryan, who had been thoroughly educated in 
college and law school, studied law in the office of Judge 
Lyman Trumbull, Lincoln's friend, and had served two tern^l 
in Congress, making a notable record as a free silver man. He 
was now but thirty-six years of age, half -journalist, half- 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 553 

lawyer, all enthusiast to better the world by political reforms. 
,With him the Democrats associated as nominee for the Vice- 
Presidency Arthur Sewall, a shipbuilder of Maine. 

This nomination split the Democratic party. The seceders 
nominated John M. Palmer of Illinois and Simon B. Buckner 
of Kentucky. But the Populists named Bryan for President 
with Thomas E. Watson of Georgia for Vice-President. And 
the Free Silver party, — mostly former Republicans from the 
six States of South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, 
Nevada, and Utah, — endorsed the Democratic ticket. 

Bryan as a Campaigner. — Bryan at once set out upon a 
wonderful campaign trip, eclipsing utterly the record even of 
Blaine in 1884. He spoke everywhere, travelling 18,000 miles 
and speaking upon 600 set occasions. He advocated the un- 
limited coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 to i. McKinley 
stayed quietly at home at Canton, making porch speeches to 
visiting delegations. He was an excellent but a gentle speaker. 
By the end of September, the general expectation was that 
Bryan would win. But the Republicans had a campaign fund 
variously estimated at from $5,000,000 to $11,000,000. The 
Democrats had scarcely one-fifth as much as the lowest esti- 
mate. The newspapers were nearly all for McKinley, who 
was styled "the advance agent of prosperity." The working- 
man was promised "a full dinner pail." Said McKinley, "Cheap 
clothing makes a cheap man." The panic of 1893 was charged 
to the repeal of the McKinley Act. "Bill McKinley and Mc- 
Kinley Bill" was a favorite campaign slogan. 

Wealth Wins. — Organization, money, tradition, and the 
G. A. R. vote won. The popular vote was 7,106,779 for Mc- 
Kinley a,nd 6,502,925 for Bryan. The Democrats charged 
fraud in several States, bribery and ballot-box stuffing and 
false counting. The Electoral College stood 271 for McKinley 
and 176 for Bryan. 

Senator Hanna. — President McKinley made aged John 
Sherman his Secretary of State. To the vacancy in the Sen- 
ate due to this appointment, the Ohio Legislature then elected 
M. A. Hanna. The move was neatly made. Thereafter, Sena- 
tor Hanna was the boss of the Republican party and the cus- 
todian of the McKinley policies until his death in Washington 
in 1904. That he used his power to promote the interests of 
his class, — ^bankers, shipowners, and manufacturers, — was 



554 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

obvious and admitted bluntly by him. That he had serious 
personal faults and even vices was known to many; but Mc- 
Kinley, like Grant, was politically indifferent to the erring ways 
of his friends. He mourned, but in private. Grant did not 
mourn at all. 
The Cabinet. — 

State, — John Sherman of Ohio, one year; John Hay of 
Ohio, two years. 

Treasury, — Lyman J. Gage of Illinois. 

War, — Russell A, Alger of Michigan, over two years; Elihu 
Root of New York, two years. 

Attorney-General, — Joseph McKenna of California, nearly 
one year; John W. Griggs of New Jersey, over three years; 
Philander C. Knox of Pennsylvania, five months. 

Postmaster-General, — James A. Gary of Maryland, one 
year; Charles Emory Smith of Pennsylvania, three years. 

Navy, — ^John D. Long of Massachusetts. 

Interior, — Cornelius N. Bliss of New York, nearly two 
years; Ethan Allen Hitchcock of Missouri, over two years. 

Agriculture, — James Wilson of Iowa, who still holds office 
after fourteen years. 

National Expenditures. — As soon as he was inaugurated, 
McKinley called Congress in special session to revise the tariff, 
which is never right. To begin with, it is never high enough 
to suit the beneficiaries who are filling the land with foreign 
laborers and thereby destroying one another's markets, for on 
their low wages and standards of living these wage-servants are 
not large consumers. Nor is the tariff ever low enough to 
please the "general public." And according to some, the tariff 
is not only undesirable but also unconstitutional. These pre- 
dict that some day soon customs houses will be turned into 
museums or into institutes, being obsolescent now. In 1897 
more revenue must be raised, partly because prevailing duties 
were too high to permit imports and partly because, for alleged 
want of constitutionality, the income tax^ could not be levied. 
The only alternative course was to reduce expenses ; but it has 
never been the policy of the Republicans as it was never that 
of their logical predecessors, the Whigs, or by the Federalists 
before them, to reduce the national expenditures. The party 
has always stood for centralization ; and it is incompatible with 

^See p. 541, supra. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 555 

the magnifying of the business of the National Government to 
reduce its costs. 

The Tariff. — The Dingley Tariff, passed and signed in 
July, 1893, was the result of the Republican policy. It in- 
creased the revenues by taking some articles from the free list 
and by lowering the tariff upon other articles. It was not so 
prohibitive an Act as the McKinley Act of 1890, and many of 
its rates were lower. It included, however, more articles for 
taxation; and yet its average per cent of tax, 51, was still 
higher than the McKinley rate. 

Cuba. — For all the centuries since Columbus, the island of 
Cuba had been under the oppression of Spain, Frequently the 
islanders revolted, but always unsuccessfully. Prior to 1898, 
for two years, a civil war of peculiar atrocity had been waged. 
Non-combatants were starved to death in "concentration 
camps." The Spanish rulers ran barbed wire fences all the way 
across the island at various points and treated the natives like 
wild animals. The American people sent food and clothing 
to the victims of this "pacification." 

The "Maine" Blown Up. — At last, the Government de- 
spatched the battleship "Maine" on a visit to the harbor of 
Havana, the largest city and the Capital of the island, lying 
southwest of Key West, Florida. In February, 1898, the 
country was horrified by the news that the "Maine" had been 
blown up in Havana Harbor, and most of her crew and sol- 
diers killed. The people at once assumed that the Spaniards 
had done this, for the harbor was filled with mines for its 
protection in time of war. The Spaniards at once replied, — 
"The 'Maine' was destroyed by an internal explosion; or if 
by an external explosion, then by some Cuban rebel, in order 
to arouse America." Not until the summer of 191 1, when 
we drained out the part of the harbor where the wreck of the 
"Maine" lay, did we really know the truth as to whether the 
explosive was internal or external. We know now that it was 
both, and it is fair to assume that the external explosion set off 
the ship's own powder magazines, but whether a Spaniard or 
a Cuban discharged a mine or a torpedo, we are not likely 
ever to know. 

American Victories. — The country, however, did not wait 
to find out who or what destroyed the "Maine" and killed our 
sailors. The cry "Avenge the 'Maine' !" went over the land. 



556 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

The war-spirit that had been awakened by Cleveland's Vene- 
zuelan message still stirred in the army and navy, in the sen- 
sational newspapers, and in many of the younger citizens. On 
March 23, 1898, the President, under the pressure of opinion 
in Congress and out of it, issued an ultimatum to Spain to 
reform her severe course ; on April 20, he issued a second ulti- 
matum to take her troops out of Cuba; on April 25, getting 
no response, he advised Congress to declare war, which Con- 
gress did upon that day. Land forces were sent into Cuba. 
The navy organized a squadron that included the "Oregon" 
from the far Pacific, Her cruise of 15,000 miles around Cape 
Horn ended just in time for her to take part in the naval battle 
off Santiago, in which a Spanish squadron was utterly de- 
molished on July 3d: Santiago surrendered on the 15th. 

Across the Pacific in the Philippine Islands, Admiral Dewey 
of the navy took Manila on May i. The land operations were! 
all favorable to the Americans. 

More Territory Acquired. — On August 12, the peace 
protocol was signed. On December 10, peace was agreed upon 
by treaty. This gave to the United States the Philippine Is- 
lands with 7,700,000 population, of whom all but 100,000 are 
of the brown Malayan race. The rest were 40,000 of the 
yellow race, 15,000 of mixed races, and 15,000 of the white 
race. The islands are thirty-one in number, containing in all 
115,000 square miles (about the area of New England, New 
York, and New Jersey combined). The main islands, Luzon, 
north, and Mindanao, south, contain respectively 41,000 and 
36,000 square miles. This meant to our nation a vast, new, 
difficult, and unwelcome problem. 

By the same Treaty, we acquired also the little Pacific Ocean 
island of Guam, and the Atlantic Ocean island of Porto Rico, 
containing 3500 square miles of land (three times the areai 
of Rhode Island) and 950,000 population, of whom 62 per 
cent, were whites, 6 per cent, negroes, and the rest mestizoes. 

The Cuban Protectorate. — We were given also the over- 
sight of Cuba, which was, however, to be independent. This 
magnificent island contains, with several small adjacent islands, 
44,000 square miles (an area slightly larger than that of New 
York State) and had in 1899 1,575,000 population, having 
lost 60,000 Inhabitants, partly by emigration, in the years of 
the last of its civil wars. That it had in 1910 2,100,000 in- 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 557 

habitants, a gain of a third, is perhaps partial warrant for our 
intervention in its affairs. For these territories, we paid Spain 
$20,000,000 and assumed all claims of citizens against Spain. 
In other words, once more the victor nation helped the de- 
feated as in the Mexican War. But there had been a vast 
difference between the attitudes of William McKinley toward 
war and of James Knox Polk. President McKinley deplored 
the war and some of its results and disclosures. 

Scandals in the War Department. — The incompetence 
of the American War Department as compared with the splen- 
did accomplishment of the Navy Department was a startling 
revelation. Considerable land forces, including volunteers, 
were mustered; and in the camps they died in hundreds of 
easily preventable diseases. The food supplies were rotten. 
Evidences of corruption abounded. 

The War-Heroes. — From the War, two men emerged as 
heroes, Admiral George Dewey, who took the Philippines, and 
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, to whom three things were at- 
tributed, — the preparedness of the Navy of which he had been 
Assistant Secretary, a brilliant skirmish upon San Juan Hill 
when Santiago was taken, and saving the health of the sol- 
diers by a final rendezvous at Montauk Point, the eastern end 
of Long Island. Unhappily, the Atlantic squadron had a feud 
as to who was the real hero of Santiago, the admiral in com- 
mand, whose ship came late into action, W. T. Sam'pson, or 
the commander during the action, W. S. Schley. 

Imperialism. — President McKinley now had upon his hands 
the business of subjugating the natives of the Philippine Is- 
lands. Under General Emilio Aguinaldo, they had set up a 
government all of their own. Senator Eugene Hale of Maine, 
Senator George F. Hoar of Massachusetts, Thomas B. Reed, 
Carl Schurz, and many others of the leading Republicans de- 
nounced subjugation as "imperialism." No representative 
democracy is adapted to rule another land and people, — for at 
once arises the question, "What are the rights of the subjects?" 
The struggle in the islands lasted for two years until the leader 
Aguinaldo was captured. We had there 60,000 American sol- 
diers. As the head of the government under various succes- 
sive titles was former Judge William Howard Taft of Ohio. 

Hawaii. — In 1898 we annexed Hawaii, and in 1900 created 
the Territory of Hawaii.^ These islands, mainly given over 

*See p. 541, fupra. 



558 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS' 

to the production of sugar, lie 2100 miles west of San Fran- 
cisco and 4900 miles east of Manila. Only eight are of any- 
commercial importance. All together they contain some 7000 
square miles, — about the area of New Jersey and twice that 
of Porto Rico, — but the population numbered only 154,000 in 
1900. It is now growing rapidly both by natural reproduction 
and by immigration. Though the island of Oahu is but one- 
seventh the size of the island of Hawaii, it has more people and 
the main city, Honolulu. This population is one-half Japa- 
nese, one-sixth Portuguese, one-eighth Chinese, one-fifth native 
Hawaiian or Hawaiian-mestizo. The Teutons, including Ameri- 
cans, English, Germans, number now but 12,000 in a total of 
175,000, of whom only one- third are females. The Hawaiians 
were and their survivors are an extraordinary race, — their 
men and women are tall and often weigh 350 to 500 pounds, 
the largest of human beings. They now number, however, 
scarcely a fifth of their total population of a century ago. 

In 1899 we annexed those of the Samoan Islands which lie 
east of 171°, acquiring the harbor of Pago-Pago. 

With the Allies in China. — In 1900 our soldiers marched 
with the allies to Pekin, China, to suppress the Boxer insurrec- 
tion against foreigners. And our Secretary of State John Hay, 
who had been private secretary to Abraham Lincoln, but who 
upon marrying a millionaire heiress in Cleveland had risen to 
high place both social and political, who was a poet of genius 
and a biographer of Lincoln, secured the integrity of the 
Chinese Empire and "the open door," a diplomatic triumph 
involving directly the welfare of 400,000,000 persons of the 
yellow race and indirectly the good of all civilized mankind. 
This led to the new Chinese Republic of 1912. 

Our Changed World-Position. — The administration of 
William McKinley had been of vast importance. Spain had 
been reduced to her own problem of self-government; and her 
world-empire was ended. By the Spanish and Chinese treaties, 
the United States had become a world-power, second only 
to Great Britain. The days of avoidance of international rela- 
tions, — the days of Washington and Jefferson, — were at an 
end. The Monroe doctrine had been enforced and extended 
by the battleships of our navy. 

The country was prosperous. War and trade expansion had 
speeded the wheels of industry and raised the prices of agricul- 



WILLIAM McKlNLEY 559 

tural products. In 1900 we had formally adopted the gold 
dollar as "the standard unit of value." 

Great questions had come up, — among them the rights of 
Filipinos, of Hawaiians, and of Porto Ricans. This took the 
form, "Does the Constitution follow the flag?" Another was, 
— "How long shall we remain in the Philippine Islands ?" We 
had in 1900 76,000,000 population, of whom 9,000,000 were 
Southern negroes and 7,000,000 Filipino Malays. Ugly race 
problems confronted us. The people responded by organizing 
ten mostly new parties that adopted national platforms and 
named Presidential candidates besides the Democratic and the 
Republican. 

Renominated. — President McKinley was unanimously 
nominated at once by the Republican Convention. The Vice- 
President had died ; and with McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, 
Rough Rider, then Governor of New York State, was named 
as Vice-Presidential candidate. He was a war-hero, a re- 
former, an author of high reputation, and a rich man. 

The Political Issues. — The Democrats named William J. 
Bryan^ again and associated with him Adlai E. Stevenson,^ 
hoping thereby to gain the votes of Cleveland Democrats. 
Bryan had been Colonel of a Nebraska volunteer regiment dur- 
ing the Spanish War, but had seen no service in the field, which 
was perhaps unfortunate for him, though not unintended by 
the Republican administration. He now raised three issues, — 
First, imperialism, asserting that the Filipinos should have 
immediate self-government and that for Americans to try to 
rule them would be to violate the Declaration of Independence 
and the Constitution, to corrupt the morals of the soldiers in 
the islands, to make maladministration in government certain, 
and to distract attention from home problems. Second, free 
silver at the ratio of 16 to i. Third, trusts : these were great 
corporations, syndicates, and pools that had gotten control of 
industry partly because of the tariff system, partly because of 
the currency system, partly because of the panic of 1893. Bryan 
was against imperialism, against gold, against trusts. 

The Election. — The popular vote in elections was : 

McKinley 7,207,923, Bryan 6,358,133. 

The Electoral College stood Republican 292, Democrat 155. 

*See pp. 121, 533, supra. *See pp. 538, 539, supra. 



56o LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

The Democrats had carried only the Solid South and four 
silver States, — Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana. The 
anti-imperialistic cry had lost them the Pacific Coast, which 
saw trade across seven thousand miles of water. The anti- 
gold cry had lost them the East. The anti-trust cry alone 
held a respectable vote anywhere in the whole North. The 
South stayed solid only because of the memories of Republican 
reconstruction, seeing in the Philippines a new race-question. 
This campaign, even more than that of 1896, showed that 
Bryan was not a master politician. He raised too many issues, 
thereby alienating too many groups.^ Incidentally, he dis- 
covered in Theodore Roosevelt a political campaigner who 
could talk almost as long and almost as often as himself with- 
out breaking down, and who, by representing standard capi- 
talism, got his speeches into the newspapers. 

Cuban Relations. — In 1900-1901 Congress arranged to 
terminate the military occupation of Cuba and to start the 
Republic. We were to hold a certain kind of protectorate, — 
two naval stations upon the island were included. The Piatt 
Amendment to the Cuban Constitution gives to the United 
States the right to intervene in Cuban afifairs when we think 
it necessary in order to protect the independence of the island, 
to preserve life, property and liberty there, and to keep our 
treaty with Spain. 

Tour of the President. — Early in the summer of 1901, 
William McKinley set out upon a tour of the South, the Pacific 
Coast, and the Middle West. The presence of Confederate 
veterans side by side with Federal veterans in the Spanish 
War, the long lapse of time, the new industrial life, had 
made a new bond between South and North; and Major Mc- 
Kinley was heartily welcomed in the South. At San Francisco 
he witnessed the launching of the battleship "Ohio," named 
for his own State, He was to make a speech at the Pan-Ameri- 
can Exposition at Buffalo, New York, in September, and, 
being in poor health, with his wife went to Canton, Ohio, to 
rest for a month. 

Assassinated. — On September 5, the President made the 
address, not only the best of his life but one of the great 
speeches of American history. It showed him as a true disciple 
of Blaine. In it he expounded the doctrine of reciprocity with 
friendly foreign nations, a wise modification of the protective 

^See pp. 112, 120, supra. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 561 

system after infant industries have reached adult size. Next 
day, at a reception, the secret service officers let pass a young 
man with his right hand done up in a handkerchief as though 
wounded. This man was Leon Czolgoscz, a Czech by birth, and 
Anarchist, who had attended private schools for a year or two 
here, and who looked upon William McKinley as a tyrant- 
ruler. Perhaps his mind had been inflamed by sensational news 
and pictures representing the President as the tool of pluto- 
crats and an enemy of the people. Like the other murderers 
of Presidents, he was no American by blood and tradition of 
generations. Whether he was really an "Anarchist" or not is 
unknown and immaterial. His act showed that he believed in 
no government, death-to-rulers. Through the handkerchief, he 
discharged two revolver shots as McKinley stretched out a kind 
right hand to greet him. One bullet penetrated the abdomen. 

Like Grant, William McKinley had been an excessive smoker 
of cigars. He preferred cheap big black ones. His health 
was popularly supposed to be good; but those who knew dis- 
trusted the promise of the surgeons that there would be a 
quick recovery. On the 14th, the patient collapsed and died, the 
third martyr to the greatness of the Presidency in a land that 
does not cherish Presidents. The assassin was duly executed 
in October, 1901. It was the standard mechanical revenge of 
society upon a man of feeble, frantic mind baffled by life's 
great evils. 

A Growing Man. — William McKinley left no property to 
his invalid wife, who survived him until 1907. He had given 
most of his life in war and peace to the public service. He had 
shown powers of growth. He was one of the type of men 
whom plain people respect and like; and his taking off was 
another example of the irony of fate. Few abler Presidents in 
our epoch of amazing and undesired and unexpected expan- 
sion would have done as well for us as this modest and indus- 
trious soldier-lawyer-politician. 



562 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

CHAPTER XXVI 

Theodore Roosevelt 

I 901 -I 909 
1858- 

45-46 States Population 85,000,000 

Admitted : Oklahoma. 

Ancestry — a frail boy— visits Europe — educated at Harvard — married 
wealthy wife — Alpine climber — State Assemblyman — death of wife — 
cattle-rancher — second marriage — defeated for mayor of New York 
— literary work — Civil Service Commissioner — New York Police Com- 
missioner — Assistant Secretary of the Navy — raises "Rough Rider" 
regiment — hero of San Juan Hill — writes round robin — Governor of 
New York — reformer — Vice-President — succeeds to Presidency — 
more books — compared with Abraham Lincoln — rediscovers the Ten 
Commandments — Panama seized — the Canal — nominated for Presi- 
dency — the issues — Democratic candidate charged corruption and 
lying — tremendous victory for Roosevelt — many reform statutes — 
centralization — the fleet circumnavigates the earth — the House of 
Governors — rural life studied — District of Columbia afifairs — Roose- 
velt helps peace between Russia and Japan — the Roosevelt panic of 
1907 — the steel merger — refuses renomination — names and elects his 
successor — the amazing African hunt — tour of Europe — New York 
State politics — still more books — superb health — versatility — compared 
with Franklin, Jackson and J. Q. Adams — contrasted with Hayes — 
his fame secure on other grounds than Presidency. 

Distinguished Ancestry. — The so-called "twenty-sixth" 
President, but really twenty-fifth, for Cleveland counts twice, 
of the United States was Theodore Roosevelt, born in New 
York City on October 27, 1858. Upon his father's side he 
was of Dutch ancestry, long resident in New York. His father, 
a merchant, attained high civil distinction, as did others of 
his ancestors and relatives. His mother was Martha Bulloch, 
daughter of a Southern family of vScotch-Irish^ and Huguenot 
extraction, of even greater prominence in South Carolina and 
in Georgia than the Roosevelts were in New York, though not 
of equal wealth. Roosevelt is Dutch-Saxon-Celt, — a Dutch- 
man speeded up. 'l^ .q-.^uA/ - 

Not a Vigorous Lad. — Like Menxae and McKinley, Theo- 
dore Roosevelt was weak in strength and poor in health in his 



^See p. 550, supra. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 563 

boyhood and youth; but both his father and the boy himself 
reaHzed the need of care. He Hved much of the time at his 
country home at Oyster Bay, Long Island, and gave special 
attention to rowing, swimming, horseback riding. Nature excur- 
sions, and outdoor life. When fourteen years of age, he 
accompanied his father to Egypt, going up the Nile to Luxor 
and making a collection of birds that was placed in the Smith- 
sonian Museum in Washington. 

Educated at Harvard ; First Marriage. — Roosevelt was 
graduated at Harvard College in 1880, in the same class with 
Robert Bacon, who became partner in the firm of J. Pier- 
pont Morgan and whom he appointed to several high offices, 
and in the same year married Alice Hathaway Lee, daughter 
of one of the wealthiest bankers of Boston, and employer of 
this same wealthy classmate. They went to Europe, where 
the young man climbed both the Jungfrau and the Matter- 
horn, and in honor of these exploits was made a member of 
the London Alpine Club. 

Member State Assembly. — Settling in New York, Roose- 
velt studied law at Columbia University and in the office of his 
interesting uncle, Robert B. Roosevelt,^ but before being 
admitted to the bar, entered actively into politics. As an 
avowed opponent to boss rule, he was elected in 1881 to the 
State Assembly. In 1883 he was his party's candidate for 
Speaker, but the Democrats were in the majority. Next year 
he went as delegate to the Republican National Convention,' 
opposed the nomination of Blaine, and advocated that of Sena-; 
tor George F. Edmunds of Vermont. 

His Wife Died. — In this same year, his wife died, leaving 
him with a daughter. He immediately gave up Eastern life 
and with impaired health went as owner and manager into' 
extensive cattle-ranching near Medora upon the Little Mis-' 
souri river. North Dakota. 

Second Marriage. — In 1886 Roosevelt returned to the 
East, married Edith Kermit Carow, a well-to-do lady of New, 
York City, and at once ran for Mayor against Abram F.^ 
Hewitt, Tammany Democrat, and Henry George, Single 
Taxer and United Labor ite. The Republican vote ^was .the' 
smallest of the three. 

^He advocated cutting Central Park into building lots f or _f uiids^to , fill, 
the city treasury. 



564 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Literary Work. — For several years, Roosevelt devoted 
himself largely to literary work. In 1882 he had published a 
standard naval history of the War of 181 2. He brought out a 
life of Senator Thomas Hart Benton in 1887 and a life of 
Gouverneur Morris in 1888, "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman" 
in 1886, and "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail' in 1887. 

Service in Appointive Offices. — His interest in politics 
now consisted mainly in civil service reform. In April, 1889, 
President Harrison appointed him a member of the United 
States Civil Service Commission. In a period of six years' 
service, he made a national reputation for himself by vigorous 
advocacy of the examination system and by efficient adminis- 
trative methods. Most of the time, he was at war with Con- 
gress and Congressmen; but in the end 20,000 places were 
added to the reform system. 

In 1895 he resigned to become President of the Board of 
Police Commissioners in New York City. His service was 
notably efficient, being a combination of sympathy with exist- 
ing conditions and of determination to better them. 

In 1897 Roosevelt became Assistant Secretary of the Navy 
under McKinley and set diligently about getting up (and ready 
for) a war with Spain. Secretary John D. Long was cold and 
indifferent; most of the long-time clerks of the department, 
hostile; Congress was disposed to ridicule the notion. But he 
undertook to improve the gunnery of the navy, collected am- 
munition, bought transports, sent ships and supplies to the 
Pacific stations, and advised the President to protest against 
the sailing of Cervera's fleet from Spain because it must be 
aimed against us, not against Cuba, which had no navy. 

The Rough Riders. — All this Theodore Roosevelt accom- 
plished because the political world had to make room for a 
man of so much energy, wealth, prestige, and daring. As 
soon as the war broke out, he resigned and raised a regiment of 
cavalry known as "Rough Riders." It included collegians, 
rich sportsmen. New York policemen, and Western cowboys 
and ranchmen. Dr. Leonard Wood, army surgeon and good 
soldier also, was colonel and Theodore Roosevelt lieutenant- 
colonel. Colonel Wood was soon made brigade commander. 
At San Juan Hill the regiment charged on foot, in the face 
of severe fire, and drove the Spaniards out of their trenches 
before Santiago. Though a colored regiment was equally 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 565 

prominent and useful in this exploit, the glory came to the 
famous political reformer. When the war was over, Colonel 
Roosevelt, with others, wrote a "round robin" letter that ex- 
posed the mismanagement of the War Department. This was 
insubordination, but it accomplished both immediate and last- 
ing good. 

Governor of New York. — The Republican party of New 
York State promptly seized upon Roosevelt as the best available 
material for the making of a governor. In November, 1898, he 
was elected by a considerable plurality. 

Named for Vice-President. — The notion of an aristocrat, 
a political reformer, and a man of letters leading valiantly the 
Rough Riders into battle caught the public fancy. As gov- 
ernor, Roosevelt made the Canal Commission — for the Erie 
Canal, like a railroad, is never done — non-partisan; intro- 
duced more civil service reform; and signed a corporation 
act that taxed public franchises. It was a good beginning; 
and Roosevelt was anxious to get another term and to go on 
with his projected reforms. But the national bosses of the 
Republican party desired a different kind of governor and 
conceived the idea of side-tracking a too independent man by 
making him Vice-President. They were also quite sure that 
his name would strengthen the ticket. Much to his chagrin, he 
was named for the obscure office of Vice-President. 

Succeeds to the Presidency. — Governor Roosevelt be- 
came Vice-President duly in March, 1901 ; but he never pre- 
sided over the Senate, for upon the death of McKinley on 
September 14, he succeeded to an office that the bosses never 
intended him to have. The news reached him when hunting 
in the Adirondacks; and he immediately hastened to Buffalo 
where he took the oath of office, asserting that he proposed 
to follow the policies of the martyred President. 

He was now but forty-two years of age, being much 
younger than any other President. Full of energy, running 
over with ideas, fearless, rich, famous on his own account, 
independent of the honors of any office, with an enthusiasm for 
real people derived from his ranch life and Cuban war asso- 
ciations, Theodore Roosevelt could not follow the policies of 
William KcKinley. 

More Literary Work. — Before coming to the Presidency 
in 1 90 1, he had added other books to his literary record, — in 



566 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

1891 one upon New York City; in 1895, in collaboration with 
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, "Hero Tales from American 
History" ; his greatest work, "The Winning of the West" in 
1889-1896; "The Rough Riders" in 1899; "The Wilderness 
Hunter" in 1893; "American Ideals" in 1900; and "The 
Strenuous Life" in 1901. 

Not an Economist. — In the character of the national prob- 
lems that interested Theodore Roosevelt, he was more like 
Abraham Lincoln than any other President and the antithesis 
of Martin Van Buren. Like Lincoln, he cared little and knew 
little about economic questions as such. His interest and his 
understanding concerned ethical questions and the ethical 
aspects of all questions; the social situation that does not have 
moral and ethical aspects never exists or can exist. To use 
his own phrase, he turned the Presidency into "such a bully 
pulpit" for preaching the principles of right and wrong to his 
fellow countrymen. In the language of his critics and enemies, 
he "rediscovered the Ten Commandments." Along with the 
preaching went such accomplishment as existin'g statutes and 
the personnel of the three several branches of government, — 
the courts, Congress, and the executive branch,— permitted. 
Unprecedented Number of Cabinet Changes. — 

State, — ^John Hay of Ohio, four years ; Elihu Root of New 
York, three and a half years; Robert Bacon of New York, 
six weeks. 

Treasury, — Lyman J. Gage of Illinois, four months; Leslie 
M. Shaw of Iowa, five years; George B. Cortelyou of New 
York, over two years. 

War, — Elihu Root of New York, over two years ; William 
H. Taft of Ohio, four and a half years; Luke E. Wright of 
Tennessee, nine months. 

Attorney-General, — Philander C. Knox of Pennsylvania, 
three years; William H. Moody of Massachusetts, two and 
a half years; Charles J. Bonaparte of Maryland, over two 
years, great grandson of the father and mother of Napoleon. 

Postmaster-General, — Charles E. Smith of Pennsylvania, 
five months ; Henry C. Payne of Wisconsin, nearly three years ; 
Robert J. Wynne of Pennsylvania, four months; George B. 
Cortelyou of New York, two years; George Von L. Meyer 
of Massachusetts, two years. 

Navy, — John D. Long of Massachusetts, eight months; 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 567 

William H. Moody of Massachusetts, over two years; Paul 
Morton of Illinois, one year; Charles J. Bonaparte, one and 
a half years; Victor H. Metcalf of California, two years; 
Truman H. Newberry of Michigan, five months. 

Interior, — Ethan A. Hitchcock of Missouri, five and a half 
years; James R. Garfield of Ohio, two years, son of James A. 
Garfield, President, 1881. 

Agriculture, — James Wilson of Iowa. 

Commerce and Labor, — George B. Cortelyou, one and a 
half years; Victor H. Metcalf, two and a half years; Oscar S. 
Straus, two and a half years. 

This was a new department. 

Departmental Efficiency. — Of the accomplishments of 
Roosevelt as President, not the least was his improvement of 
the efficiency of the men at the head of the executive divisions 
and bureaus. He was always himself the chief, treating all his 
Secretaries (as did Jackson and Lincoln and Cleveland), 
whether rich or poor, famous or unknown, old or young, as 
working assistants, not as colleagues. The persistent tendency 
of Congress is to seek to break up the unity of the executive 
branch by requiring reports directly to itself without passing 
through the hands of the President. Congress tried to do so 
repeatedly under Roosevelt, but failed. 

The Republic Transformed. — The range of interests 
cared for under Roosevelt vastly exceeded those under any 
earlier President. The administration of McKinley had trans- 
formed the Republic. The number of Government offices and 
clerkships grew to 360,000 in Roosevelt's time, an increase 
of thirty per cent, in ten years. Theodore Roosevelt managed 
to make himself felt everywhere, even in places where the 
common sense of the public scarcely supported his intrusions. 
Especially disliked by many were his utterances respecting 
large families of children. But he set in process the demolition 
of great trusts, as in the attack upon the Northern Securities 
Company, which aimed to unite the great competing railways 
of the Northwest. Yet he was no legalist; and his actions, 
being without inner consistency, appeared those of a polyphase, 
unprincipled, earnest, and somewhat dangerous man. No one 
knew what to expect next. 

The Monroe Doctrine. — The first important official action 



568 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

of President Roosevelt was to modify the Monroe Doctrine'^ 
by a limitation. Venezuela had resented the claims of private 
citizens against herself. Some claims were probably fraudu- 
lent, but Venezuela did not judiciously or even judicially dis- 
criminate. When, in 1901, Qermany undertook to enforce 
payment, President Roosevelt declared that the United States 
would permit punishment provided Germany did not un- 
dertake to acquire territory in the New World. A year later 
Germany, England, and Italy blockaded Venezuela. Next year 
the new Hague Court of internal arbitration supported the 
claims of these powers. 

Similarly, Roosevelt intervened in the affairs of San Do- 
mingo, quite in the spirit of President Grant. This occurred 
in 1904, when he extended the Monroe Doctrine by asserting 
that when a government was wicked or impotent the United 
States might resort "to the exercise of international police 
power." In 1905 he signed a protocol giving to the United 
States control of San Domingo finances. Congress objected 
strenuously until in 1907 the Senate agreed to a treaty along 
the lines of the original Roosevelt plan. 

Helps the Mine Workers and the Nation. — Early in 
1902 the United Mine Workers struck for shorter hours and 
for higher wages. The attitude of the mine owners was 
offensive to the public mind. Wholly without warrant of law 
or custom, Roosevelt intervened, and with signal success. It 
was a picturesque incident in that he was laid up at the time 
with trouble in a leg, — the circumstance was a reminder of the 
experience of George Washington in his early days as Presi- 
dent.'* By his intervention Roosevelt saved us the horrors of 
a Homestead strike' and a Pullman riot,* and secured better 
terms for the men. 

The Earth Girdled by Electric Telegraph Lines. — 
In the summer of 1903, the circuit of the earth by electric cable 
and wire was completed, and from his summer home at Oyster 
Bay President Roosevelt telegraphed to Honolulu and Manila. 
This achievement greatly facilitated government in the Pa- 
cific islands.* 

*See pp. 298 et seq.; 542, supra. *See p. 541, supra. 

'Set p. 232, supra. "See p. 158, supra. 

*See p. 547, supra. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 569 

In the fall of the same year, by arbitration award, the 
boundaries of Alaska and Canada were settled. These sus- 
tained most of the American claims. 

Panama Seized. — But the most interesting of all the events 
of the first term of Roosevelt was a revolution at Panama, by 
which the State of Panama seceded from Columbia and created 
itself a Republic and then gave to the United States a right 
of way for an interocean ship-canal. Such a canal had been 
dreamed of for four hundred years. It was more than sus- 
pected that the "revolution" was engineered by Americans. 
In 191 1, in an address in California, Roosevelt definitely said 
of Panama, "I took it." 

A Highly Significant View of the Presidency. — Later 
in the same year, in a published article, he set forth his theory 
that the President has the right to do anything useful that he 
has the power to do and that the Constitution, the statutes, 
and the judicial decisions do not expressly forbid. The Presi- 
dent is "the steward of the public welfare." In the zone lying 
between his powers and his prohibitions, the President deals 
only with his own conscience, and his only risk is impeachment.* 

The Panama Canal. — In 1902 we had bought the old 
French canal as far as completed and the rights for $40,000,- 
000. By treaty in 1904, we paid $10,000,000 to Panama for a; 
strip of land ten miles wide. Unless the vast Gatun dam 
breaks, the canal will be completed in 1913, at a cost of 
$400,000,000, the most stupendous engineering achievement 
in human history, reducing the distance by sea from New 
York to San Francisco from 14,000 to 5000 miles, and chang- 
ing the politics of all the earth. How useful this will prove 
in a future age of airships and aeroplanes, how soon science 
will make it as obsolete as the pyramids, we do not foreknow. 

Nominated President. — In 1904 the Republican party 
named Theodore Roosevelt for President, with Charles W. 
Fairbanks of Indiana as Vice-President. The latter was ai 
rich corporation lawyer, a friend of former President Harri- 
son, and at this time United States Senator. 

The Democratic party nominated Alton B. Parker, Chief 
Justice of the Court of Appeals of New York State, for Presi- 
dent, and with him associated for the Vice^Presidential place 
upon the ticket Henry Gassaway Davis, former United States 

*See p. 154, supra. 



570 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Senator from West Virginia, banker and railroad president, 
multimillionaire, and at the time eighty-one years of age. 

The Issues. — The party platforms joined issue on the pro- 
tective tariff, on the imperialism itself, and on the resultant 
colonial policy, but agreed substantially on the trusts and on 
the gold standard. During the campaign. Judge Parker made 
the charge that the Republicans were gathering immense cam- 
paign funds from life insurance companies and other great 
corporations. This charge Roosevelt vehemently denied, ask- 
ing for "a square deal." The people believed him, — for sev- 
eral years. 

Al Brilliant Past and the Lie Win the Election. — In 
the election the popular vote stood for the Republicans by 
2,500,000 plurality and by 1,500,000 majority. To this amaz- 
ing triumph, several factors contributed. Many of Bryan's 
free silver followers refused to vote for the Democratic ticket; 
the nomination of Davis had been offensive because obviously 
the intention was to "tap Davis' money-barrel," yet in fact 
Davis gave but little ; and the Republicans had immense funds, 
derived, as Parker has said, from the trusts and insurance 
companies. If, as Roosevelt asserted later, upon proof of his 
error, he did not know the sources of the supplies, then he was 
singularly blind in view of his opportunities, for his own secre- 
tary, George B. Cortelyou, was campaign manager. If not 
ignorant, then his stout denial was a dark and damning stain 
upon his mainly white escutcheon. The labor vote was his 
anyway. 

President for Himself. — With this endorsement, Roose- 
velt now entered upon his own elective term with enthusiasm 
and confidence. He was the only Vice-President ever to be 
elected President.^ No other man had ever received so large 
a popular vote or so great a majority. The Electoral College 
had stood 336 for him to 140 for Parker. It was true that 
Judge Parker had not proven to be a popular national can- 
didate; and yet he was in fact a good lawyer, a man of the 
highest character, and was a popular man in his own State. 
In the trial between them, the former New York Governor, 
however, had defeated the Chief Justice. Even the Solid 
South, moved by his Southern maternal ancestry and by his 
favorable attitude toward negro industrial education, had 

*See pp. 31, 32, 58, supra. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 571 

shown signs of breaking-up in order to honor Theodore 
Roosevelt. 

Public Enlightenment. — His one all-inclusive aim, in 
what was virtually his second term, was to enlighten the public 
mind and to awaken the public conscience to the serious evils 
of the politico-economic regime. To defeat plutocracy he ad- 
vocated publicity through the agencies of government. It was 
not a wholly logical program, it was not wholly successful, 
but that the aim was itself true, and that the President ren- 
dered an exceedingly important service, later history is not 
likely to dispute. 

In 1903 the Department of Commerce and Labor had been 
created, and to its activities the President directed especial at- 
tention in the development of his program of reform. 

Congress passed a Meat Inspection Act and a Pure Food 
and Drug Act in order to promote the interests of honest 
dealers against the dishonest adulterators. 

An act was passed prohibiting the States from naturalizing 
as citizens any persons who cannot read and write the English 
language. This was a distinct step in centralization, but one 
so consonant with almost universal public opinion that its con- 
stitutionality has never been challenged. This limitation tends 
to weaken the power of political bosses in cities, — which means 
the power of capitalists to buy votes and to control govern- 
ment. 

The Russo-Japanese Treaty. — In 1903 war had begun 
between Japan and Russia. In a single battle of that war 
there had fallen more killed and wounded than fell in all the 
battles of the War between the States together. In the summer 
of 1905 the American government initiated proposals of 
peace, — in a manner that caused both parties to hesitate to 
proceed. At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, upon our own soil, 
a treaty was finally arranged late in August by representatives 
of the Mikado and of the Emperor. The credit of forcing this 
peace clearly belongs to Theodore Roosevelt, President of the 
United States. But historians will dispute for many a cen- 
tury whether or not it would have been better to let one of 
the greatest wars in human history work itself out to the 
bitter end; and what that end would have been. Russia is 
Christian-Greek Catholic; but Russia is also a tyranny gross, 
brutal, and corrupt. Japan is pagan, whatever that means, pro- 



572 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

gressive, idealistic. Russians are white, Japs are yellow. And 
the race-struggle is the greatest fact of all the life of 
humanity. 

As Japan was winning, the treaty was favorable to her ; but 
not so favorable as, of course, her patriots desired. The action 
of Roosevelt, — with its covert threat of the interference of 
American troops and ships, — ^pleased no Japanese, and angered 
Russian progressives. It laid, however, new solid stones in 
the rising temple that, ages and ages hence, may shelter the 
world-parliament of peaceful mankind. 

Breaks a Party Leader. — In 1906 the personal affiliations 
of Senator Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio, with corrupt business 
magnates and their tools and heelers, became known in part 
through the activities of a New York newspaper, which pub- 
lished some of his correspondence. The Senator had incensed 
the President by attacking a military order discharging three 
companies of colored troops for "shooting up" the town of 
Brownsville, Texas. There were threats even of impeachment. 
In fiery personal conversation, Roosevelt asserted that he 
"would dig a grave six feet deep, chuck Foraker into it, and 
stamp the earth down upon him." And he did, for he under- 
stood Ohio politics better even than the famous and eloquent 
but at least indiscreet Grand Army orator. Foraker was 
soon out of the Senate and dead in politics. 

Admission of Oklahoma. — In 1907, after much parleying, 
the new State of Oklahoma was admitted into the Union. It 
contained then about 1,500,000 persons, of whom two-thirds 
were white, the rest being Indians, half-breeds, negroes, and 
mestizos. The Constitution of this State, which comprised 
both the Indian Territory, begun in 1838 under Jackson and 
settled largely in the ten years after the Interstate War, — the 
Indians had negro slaves and supported the South, — and also 
the western territory of Oklahoma, contained many innova- 
tions that did not please the Northeast in general or Roosevelt 
in particular. It is at least radical, if not progressive ; and it is 
certainly long enough and detailed enough, if not wise. It is 
not a constitution only, but legislation. 

In 191 2, Roosevelt became the convinced advocate of all 
these innovations, — direct legislation by initiative, by referen- 
dum, by recall, — and even advocated review of judicial 
decisions by popular vote. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 573 

An American Fleet Astonishes the World. — In 1907, 
in a recess of Congress, without specific legislation or appro- 
priation therefor/ but by economizing in the miscellaneous 
funds, President Roosevelt despatched a fleet of sixteen battle- 
ships to circumnavigate the earth. It was an astonishing inno- 
vation to teach the world the greatness of the United States. 
When Congress assembled, there was some grumbling, for the 
extra cost for coal and other supplies was several millions of 
dollars. But public opinion exercised for Roosevelt a dispens- 
ing power. 

The House of Governors. — In 1908 the President called 
a meeting of all the governors of the States, together with 
several notable multimillionaires and public leaders, to discuss 
at the White House the conservation of our natural resources. 
This led to the formation of the House of Governors, meeting 
annually, and has tended in consequence to State's rights 
through decentralized activities. The first direct result of this 
first meeting was the appointment of a commission to reclaim 
arid lands by irrigation and swamp lands by drainage ; to check 
the erosion of soil by streams, especially to check complete 
denudation of hillsides of their forests; to develop inland 
waterways ; and to regulate the removal of ores and coal from 
their treasuries under ground. 

There was appointed by the President an unofficial rural life 
commission, without salary, whose direct purpose was to dis- 
cover ways to induce city families to move into the country, 
and country families to improve their conditions at home. 

The District of Columbia. — It illustrates the multifarious 
activities of Theodore Roosevelt that in 1906, at his instance, 
Congress passed an Act reforming the public schools of the 
voteless District of Columbia by extending to them a civil 
service merit system and by introducing industrial instruction. 
By Congressional lobb)dng, however, these measures were 
partly frustrated before they became fully operative. 

In 1908, when a bill was before Congress to enforce free 
transfers between the several electric traction street railways 
of Washington, an ugly discovery was made that the private 
secretary to the President held in his own name 4750 shares 
of these companies. Upon his own written admission, as pub- 
lished in the "Congressional Record," most of these shares 
were held for Senators and Representatives. The bill was 

*S6e pp. 284, 302, supra. 



574 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS ^ 

defeated to the enrichment of the companies ; and the secretary 
became a director of the largest, whose active manager had 
led the lobby that in part defeated the school reform measures. 
Incidentally, it was revealed that the private secretary of the 
Speaker of the House was heavily interested in asphalt con- 
tracts for the streets of the District. Speaker J. G. Cannon 
was found to be interested in the Anacostia flats, which it was 
proposed to drain at National cost. To all such matters, the 
President refused to open his eyes, asserting that the govern- 
ment of the District was as good as the people wished it to be. 
His successor, however, made some prompt and beneficial 
changes in the District Commission and elsewhere. 

The "Roosevelt Panic." — In 1907 a financial panic oc- 
curred. Its first symptoms were the failures of a prominent 
trust company in New York and of certain allied banks and 
speculators. But it spread widely, affecting banks perhaps as 
much as the panic of 1893. In the course of the settlement 
of these affairs, the United States Steel Corporation, with a 
capital of one and a half billions of dollars, was allowed by 
the President to absorb its greatest rival, the Tennessee Coal, 
Iron and Railroad Company. That this was done in violation 
of the Shemian Act against trusts all now understand.^ 

Many rich men charged that this was a "Roosevelt panic," 
due to his preachments against "malefactors of great wealth," 
by which he had created general business distrust. 

Declines to Allow His Name for President Again. — 
At the same period, he undertook to coerce Congress to pass 
certain bills that he favored, using measures that both aston- 
ished, angered and disconcerted his enemies. Nevertheless, 
had he himself been willing to accept the nomination, the Re- 
publican party would have named him for President again in 
the elections of 1908. He was, however, himself unwilling to 
run, — and for many reasons. He was by no means sure of re- 
election on account of a third-term cry (not wholly justified) 
and of the opposition of certain rich men and of many politi- 
cians. If elected, he had seen in his own lifetime the deaths of 
Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley and had read in history how 
Caesar died. He would go a-hunting and then spend his later 
years writing books, and to use his own phrase, reflecting upon 
his "perfectly corking time" as President. 

Names His Successor. — Among his lieutenants, two were 

^See p. 586; infra. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 575 

highly regarded, — Elihu Root and W. H. Taft. Chiefly upon 
the grounds of availabiHty, Roosevelt decided to endorse the 
candidacy of the latter. 

He took a prominent part in the campaign for the election 
of Taft to "carry out the Roosevelt policies." 

The African Hunt. — Before he had ended his term as 
President, Roosevelt had been appointed "consulting editor" 
of a national weekly magazine, originally founded by Henry 
Ward Beecher, and had contracted with a high-class monthly 
magazine for a series of hunting articles. On March 23, 
1909, he set out for Africa to revisit the scenes of his excur- 
sions as a boy-naturalist and to extend the range of his hunt- 
ing to the equatorial tropics. He proposed to add to the 
Smithsonian Museum at Washington the finest collection of 
African animals and birds in the world. To this end, assisted 
by some multimillionaires whose names he has recently given 
to the public, — an admission that has created distrust regard- 
ing the Tennessee Coal and Iron deal with the United States 
Steel Corporation, — Roosevelt organized the greatest hunting 
expedition that is recorded in human history. The exploits of 
Nimrod are m3rthical, those of Roosevelt are attested by the 
skins of trophies, by the captured living animals themselves, 
by the many African, European and American witnesses, and 
by photographs. The hunt ended in March, 1910, with entire 
success. His book, "African Game Trails," is admirably 
written and is of substantial value as a social study and a 
travel record as well as the diary of a big and small game 
naturalist. 

Tour in Europe. — Then the former President made a 
tour of Europe, visiting many sovereigns, and seeing its capi- 
tals and universities on even terms with monarchs and savants 
and statesmen. He was received with honors comparable 
with those of ex-President Grant, and with even louder and 
more public acclaim. He refused to see the Pope, because the 
Pope ordered him not to visit a certain Protestant minister in 
Rome. He failed to visit Russia, probably because the Rus- 
sian autocracy had been ungrateful to him for saving its politi- 
cal life and the Russian people were hostile because he had 
delayed the coming of the Republic. All of his European ad- 
dresses were widely published. One of them considerably 
afifected European history, — that at the Guild Hall, London, 



576 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

advocating a more rigorous policy in Egypt against the mur- 
derous Nationalists. 

Ovation at Home. — On his arrival home at New York, 
almost literally all nearby America turned out to welcome 
him. He received an ovation like that accorded in 1899 to 
Admiral George Dewey, hero of Manila Bay. But he did not 
rest. He immediately took part in the Republican party politics 
of New York State, naming the candidate for Governor. After 
the defeat of that candidate, in 191 1, he persuaded President 
Taft to make him Secretary of War. 

Since 1910 Roosevelt has made speaking tours of the 
country. His magazine articles are widely read. Individually 
considered, the former President is the most prominent citizen 
of the country. But he has not the political influence of Jef- 
ferson or of Jackson. He lives at Oyster Bay, Long Island. 
His oldest daughter is now the wife of a millionaire Congress- 
man, — Nicholas Longworth of Ohio. He has four sons and 
two daughters. 

In the spring of 1912 he made a vigorous canvass for re- 
homination as President, repudiating friendship with the Presi- 
dent and insisting upon his right to a third term. He styled 
the proposition to make a President Ineligible to a second term 
or to a third "tomfool." 

Personal Appearance. — Theodore Roosevelt is a large 
man, not tall, but strong and heavy, weighing above two hun- 
dred twenty-five pounds. His physical endurance is not 
easily credible. He has already done an able man's life work 
in each of three fields, — in government and politics, in natural 
history and hunting, and in history and literature. 

Ability and Character. — His versatility is his most 
notable intellectual quality; his intense earnestness his most 
notable moral quality. His fault has been insufficient con- 
sideration of important matters, with too quick aptness to 
interfere in misunderstood policies and details. He has, of 
course, been inconsistent; nor has he been above that human 
quality of intense natures of being blind to the faults of his 
friends. Too much the politician to be wholly scrupulous, 
Theodore Roosevelt nevertheless is easily entitled to a place 
among the leading Presidents. He will rank high rather in 
ability than in character, however ; and the censures upon him 
will be that he exhausted his influence by dissipating his own 



;THE0D0RE ROOSEVELT 577 

interests and activities and by resorting upon more than one 
occasion to bullying, to evading, to simulation, and to dissimu- 
lation. It is a pity indeed that one with so clean a personal 
life cannot rank with the reformed and the redeemed. Quality 
as well as quantity counts in this life. 

Compared with Others. — Let us set Theodore Roosevelt 
with Jackson. Let us think of him side by side with Benjamin 
Franklin. Even so, we see that he was unique. Perhaps, 
Hayes was his almost exact antithesis. Perhaps, intellectually, 
but not otherwise, he most resembled J. Q. Adams. 

For all his faults, however, Theodore Roosevelt was dis- 
tinctly superior to the weakest and worst of our Presidents — • 
to speak comparatively, for not one was intentionally un- 
patriotic or false to his trust — to Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, 
Buchanan, and Grant. For all his virtues, he was measurably 
inferior to the strongest and best of the Presidents. His ulti- 
mate rank is, of course, beyond present estimation; but with 
his views on war and peace, on sobriety of utterance and dig- 
nity in action before a calmer world of posterity, Theodore 
Roosevelt is not likely to be listed with Jefferson, Madison, 
Lincoln or even with J. Q. Adams, Van Buren, or Cleveland. 

But owing to his admirable achievements in so many other 
lines and to his influence upon general American social history 
and to his European fame, though he may accomplish nothing 
more from now to his death, — which is unlikely, — Theodore 
Roosevelt is certain to be classed as one of the ablest of our 
race. He is easily an American immortal. Not often does a 
man appear who is an athlete — hunter — rancher — naturalist — 
historian — critic — politician — statesman — soldier willing to 
kill or to be killed all in one; and in each at least second, if not 
first, class. To be versatile imperils fame ; but to be sufficiently 
versatile insures fame. In itself, versatility is a distinctive 
quality. 

In all explicitness, Roosevelt suffers beside McKinley in 
modesty and in charity, and beside Taft in candor and in quiet 
efficiency as an administrator; but clearly exceeds even them 
in a terrible directness of insight. But all three together suffer 
in comparison with their predecessor, Cleveland, whose politi- 
cal career was without intrigue or secrecy or indirection. No 
rich friends backed Cleveland, no funds elected him, no apolo- 
gists followed him to explain his public character and conduct. 



578 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

But the suspicion will persist that in some day to come we 
shall know the inner story of the career of Theodore Roose- 
velt and that it will be a revelation of personal character and 
of American social conditions well worth reading and con- 
sidering. Here is almost as fascinating an example of human 
nature as Napoleon, without his opportunities, with not quite 
his abilities but of a higher moral life. Perhaps polyphase 
dynamic mediocrity, though it seems intellectual disorder and 
moral irresponsibility, is admirable in an age that worships 
cautious, thorough, brilliant specialization. 

Not until he is dead, will the United States have political 
peace. And yet perhaps "in the providence of God" (as men 
say) we may need strife rather than peace. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

William Howard Taft 

1909- 
1857- 

46-48 States 1 910 — Population 92,000,000 

Admitted : Arizona, New Mexico. 

Taft V. Root for President — his ancestry — a distinguished father — edu- 
cated at Yale College — fine student — personal appearance — Cincinnati 
Law school — newspaper work — collector of internal revenue — assistant 
county collector — Judge of Superior Court — United States Solicitor- 
General — Circuit Judge — decides against labor — marriage — multimillion- 
aire relatives — law school dean — head of the Philippine Government — 
the best proconsul ever sent out by any people — $7,000,000 paid for 
lands' of Spanish friars — public schools — Secretary of War — Panama 
Canal — "Uncle Sam's travelling man" — liked by Congress — "steam- 
roller" methods in Republican Convention — another balanced ticket — a 
third Bryan defeat — great funds — his Cabinet — tariff revision upward 
— Congress becomes Democratic — Champ Clark — Canadian reciprocity 
— tariff reduction vetoed — his addresses — high administration effi- 
ciency — the present issues. 

Root or Taft. — Theodore Roosevelt made William How- 
ard Taft President, but Benjamin Harrison discovered him. 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 579 

Nor was he the first choice of Roosevelt, who would have 
preferred his Secretary of State, Elihu Root. But Root was 
not only a man of far-sighted statesmanship but also a great 
and famous, even notorious, New York corporation lawyer, 
rich partly by marriage though mainly by fees. The Republi- 
can managers dared not name him as Presidential candidate 
but instead voted their tools in the New York Legislature and 
sent him to the United States Senate to succeed the providen- 
tially deceased Thomas H. Piatt, corruptionist and head of a 
corrupt express company. Taft was available. He was per- 
sonally poor, but he had a rich half-brother and a very rich 
sister-in-law; and his wife had another rich sister-in-law, each 
reputed to be a twenty-millionaire, and willing to help forward 
a connection-by-marriage. 

Ancestry. — President Taft, the twenty-seventh President 
to hold office, counting Cleveland twice, was born in Cincinnati, 
Ohio, on September 15, 1857. His father Alphonso Taft was 
a man of public distinction, a native of Vermont, graduate 
of Yale College and Law School, later a judge of court, then 
Secretary of War and Attorney-General under Grant, and 
Minister to Austria and to Russia under Arthur, a prominent, 
if not powerful, man in politics. His mother comes from 
Massachusetts colonial stock. 

Educated at Yale ; His Mind and Body. — William How- 
ard Taft went to the Cincinnati public schools, and then to 
Yale where he made a brilliant and substantial record in his 
class as a student, becoming salutatorian. He was interested 
in athletics, though his huge size made his own participation in 
sports inconvenient. 

Experiences in Early Manhood. — Taft was graduated 
from the Cincinnati College of Law in 1880, being tied for 
first place as a law student; and was at once admitted to the 
bar. His older half-brother, Charles P. Taft, owner of the 
Times newspaper in Cincinnati, employed him as a legal re- 
porter for a few months. Then he went to the Commercial. 
But, early in 1881, he became assistant prosecuting attorney 
for his county and, in 1882, was made collector of internal 
revenue for the first district of Ohio. In 1883 he resigned 
and practiced law for two years. From 1885 to 1887, he was 
assistant solicitor for his county, and then was appointed to 
fill a vacancy as judge of the Superior Court of Ohio, an office 



58o LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

that his father had held at fifty-five years of age. Next year 
the people duly elected him judge. In 1890 President Harri- 
son chose him to be Solicitor-General of the United States. 

As Circuit Judge.— This was his first real opportunity. 
He was engaged in two important matters, drafting the Sher- 
man Anti-Trust Act'^ and negotiating the Bering Sea seal con- 
troversy.^ In 1892 he was made a United States (Sixth) 
Circuit Judge. In this capacity, he rendered several important 
decisions against organized labor. One was against the secon- 
dary boycott. Another was against the powerful Brotherhood 
of Locomotive Engineers, which tried to prevent certain rail- 
roads from accepting freight from another railroad, against 
which its engineers were on strike. Still another decision de- 
clared criminal a rule of the Brotherhood forbidding its mem- 
bers to haul freight under certain conditions. In a fourth 
instance, he sent an agent of the American Railway Union to 
jail. He said that "the starvation of a nation cannot be the 
lawful purpose of a combination," and also that "if there is 
any power in the army of the United States to run those 
trains, the trains will be run." 

By these various decisions and injunctions, Taft became 
known as a friend of the railroads and an enemy of organized 
labor. He had especially antagonized P. M. Arthur, the able 
chief of the Brotherhood of Railway Engineers, and Eugene 
V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union. 

Marriage. — The personal associations of Judge Taft caused 
him to favor the rich. In 1886 he had married Helen Herron 
of Cincinnati, whose sister was the wife of a Pittsburg multi- 
millionaire iron manufacturer, the junior partner of the inde- 
pendent firm of Jones & Laughlin. His own brother was a 
multimillionaire, as was his wife, Annie Sinton Taft. The 
Tafts were intimate friends of the Longworths, an old family 
of Cincinnati, and commonly reputed to be its wealthiest 
citizens.^ No historical view of W. H. Taft that neglects 
these facts is impartial and serious. 

As AN Educator. — In 1896 Taft was dean and professor 
in the Law School of the University of Cincinnati. In 1899 
there was a serious movement to make him President of Yale 

^Department officers frequently "assist" Congress in drafting legislation, 
^See p. 548, supra. ''See pp. 576, supra; 582, infra. 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 581 

University, but he favored Professor Arthur T. Hadley, who 
was selected. Judge Taft had had some experience in control 
of public schools in the city of Cincinnati, and with his usual 
quick and true insight into situations asserted that a college 
president should be a professional educator. He is now a 
Trustee of Yale University. 

Pro-consul in the Philippines. — In 1900, suddenly, 
there came to Professor Taft his second great opportunity. 
President McKinley asked him to take the Presidency of the 
Commission to govern the Philippine Islands. With his usual 
frankness, he told McKinley that he was opposed to American 
rule in the Philippines. But upon the President's characteristi- 
cally persuasive insistence, Taft accepted. In 1901 he became 
Governor-General of the Islands. He confronted one of the 
worst possible situations. There was constant friction be- 
tween the American military and civil authorities. Though 
the primacy of the civil over the military is a cardinal principle 
of American Government, the existing situation in the Philip- 
pines made it necessary that, in many matters, the military 
should have right of way. The Filipinos hated the Spaniards 
and were scarcely more friendly at first to the Americans. 

Though the United States Government supported Taft uni- 
formly, many Americans were constantly intriguing against 
the regime. These included the Boston anti-imperialists, many 
Bryanites, and many business men who saw advantage in tur- 
moil. But though the historian of the future may write cen- 
soriously of William H. Taft as a Judge, and not wholly 
favorably of him as a President, it is scarcely likely to revise 
the opinion that he made the best "pro-consul" ever sent out 
by a foreign and victorious nation to rule a conquered people 
up to the year 1904, when he resigned. His excellent per- 
formances included inaugurating American public schools and 
an adjustment with Rome by a personal visit to the Pope by 
which, for $7,000,000, the Philippine Government acquired all 
the vast areas of land owned in the islands by the Spanish 
friars. In 1902 President Roosevelt offered to him a place 
on the Supreme Court bench, but he declined in order to finish 
his work in the Philippines. 

Secretary of War. — But in 1904, when- the President 
asked him to become Secretary of War, in his Cabinet, Gov- 
ernor-General Taft resigned. In the appointment, he saw 



582 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

opportunities both to forward the building of the Panama 
Canal, which would help the Filipinos, and also to regulate the 
military establishment in the Islands. He knew also that few 
white men can long remain in the Philippines without serious 
impairment of health. Despite several ocean trips during his 
term of office, he felt that on account of his health he should 
end his stay at Manila. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1905, 
he took a party of Congressmen out there, — the party included 
Nicholas Longworth, M. C, of Cincinnati, and Alice Roose- 
velt, the oldest child of Theodore Roosevelt. 

Uncle Same's Traveling Man. — In the fall of 1906, when 
the United States intervened, Secretary Taft took charge of 
Cuban affairs. In 1907 he inspected the Panama Canal and 
also visited Cuba and Porto Rico. In October of this year, he 
went to the Philippines and opened their first legislature. He 
came back via Japan, Siberia, and Russia, attending en route to 
several diplomatic duties. In this period he became popularly 
known as "Uncle Sam's traveling man." 

A Popular Man. — Many forces contributed to his candi- 
dacy for the Republican nomination for President in 1908. He 
had had no time to make money and no time even to consider 
how to save any money out of his salaries. Except for the four 
years of his modest law professorship, he had always been a 
public man ; and a public servant in America cannot easily save 
money. Theodore Roosevelt was his friend and admirer ; and 
was now the father-in-law of a son of his nearest Cincinnati 
family friends. 

Most of all, the "big man" had caught the public eye happily 
as being good-natured, diplomatic, industrious, honest, and 
efficient. Senators and Representatives on the Committees of 
Congress told how Taft, unlike all other Secretaries, when 
asked questions by mail or by telephone as to the Department 
of War about pending legislation, swung upon a trolley car 
down Pennsylvania Avenue and in a quarter hour was at the 
Capitol. Other Secretaries took days to hunt information and 
to write It out. One prominent Senator remarked, "Taft may 
be in Washington only a day a month, but he is of more use to 
Congress in that one day than other Secretaries who spend 
the whole month at their desks." It was exaggeration, but it 
formulated the general Congressional opinion. For one thing, 
"Big Bill Taft," as he had been called since college days by 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 583 

many, liked to meet other men; his size and his geniality and 
his amazingly quick mind enabled him usually to win his points 
quickly. 

"Injunction Bill/' — But organized labor called him "In- 
junction Bill." Only once in his life had he come before the 
people for an election office, and that was for a judgeship. 
Though his rich brother Charles had been a Congressman in 
1895-6, the Tafts were not considered popular in Ohio; and 
Ohio was perhaps the pivotal State. Judges seldom make 
popular candidates. Only four years before, Judge Parker of 
New York had been tremendously defeated.^ 

Work for the Republican Nomination. — The Taft en- 
thusiasts, however, set to work to force his nomination. The 
Postmaster-General, Frank H. Hitchcock, a brilliant young 
bachelor, resigned from the Cabinet, and, being supplied with 
great funds, opened offices in Washington to corral the votes 
of all the Southern delegates, many of whom were Federal 
officeholders. By the time that the Convention had assembled 
at Chicago in June, the field was ready for "steam-roller" 
methods. 

The vote on the first ballot stood 702 to 278 for all other 
candidates. For Vice-President, the party leaders then turned 
to a personal and political friend of Speaker Joseph G. Cannon, 
well known as a corruptionist, who was Roosevelt's avowed 
enemy, and named James Schoolcraft Sherman, member of 
Congress from New York State. Sherman was a scholarly 
man, a banker. He was known as "Sunny Jim Sherman" and 
as a clever New York State politician. The nomination was 
generally considered weak and unsatisfactory, because Sher- 
man was not conspicuously rich and the Cannon anti-Roose- 
velt wing of the Republican party was unpopular. 

Bryan Again. — 'The Democrats, however, played directly 
into the hands of the Republicans. They chose for Presi- 
dential nominee William Jennings Bryan, whom McKinley 
had twice defeated ; and for Vice-Presidential candidate John 
W. Kern, an Indiana lawyer, who had twice been defeated 
for the governorship of his own State and had never risen 
higher than State Senator, an office that he had held for three 
years. He had then become city attorney for Indianapolis, 
leaving that office in 1901. As far as Kern stood for anything, 
it was for a rich Democratic politician, Thomas Taggart, who 

*See p. 569, supra. 



584 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

was in bad odor locally and nationally. It was a fatal associa- 
tion for Bryan, the reformer. 

Elected President. — In the campaign, great funds were 
expended by the Republicans, though not so great as in the year 
when Hanna helped to put McKinley into the Presidency.^ The 
Republican vote was 7,678,908, the Democratic 6,409,104. The 
Socialist vote was 420,793, the Prohibitionist 253,840. In the 
Electoral College Taft had 321 votes, Bryan 162. 

In his inaugural address, following the Republican party 
platform and his own campaign speeches, President Taft advo- 
cated a strict enforcement of the John Sherman Anti-Trust 
Act, the regulation of railroad rates by the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission, the conservation of natural resources; a 
strong navy ; postal savings banks ; free trade with the Philip- 
pine Islands; mail subsidies for American ships; and the re- 
vision of the tariff in order to insure to our manufacturers a 
price suflficient to give to them a reasonable profit in competi- 
tion with foreigners. All these propositions, together v/ith his 
personal assurance that he hoped to help solve the race prob- 
lems and to secure a better mutual understanding between 
South and North, indicated a desire to promote centralization 
and national unity. 

The Cabinet of Taft. — The Cabinet chosen by the famous 
general agent of the American Government when he took 
charge of it as head aroused great interest and much question- 
ing. The membership was : 

State, — Philander C. Knox of Pennsylvania. 

Treasury, — Franklin MacVeagh of Illinois. 

War, — Jacob M. Dickinson of Tennessee. 

Attorney-General, — George W. Wickersham of New York. 

Postmaster-General, Frank H. Hitchcock of Massachusetts. 

Navy, — George von L. Meyer of Massachusetts. 

Interior, — Richard A. Ballinger of Washington (State). 

Agriculture, — James Wilson of Iowa. 

Commerce and Labor, — Charles Nagel of Missouri. 

This Cabinet was universally considered, first, a Cabinet to 
represent "the interests," meaning thereby, the rich; second, 
non-partisan, for Dickinson and MacVeagh were Democrats; 
third, experienced and able. A strong administration was 
looked to, but not a progressive one. Continued popular at- 
tacks of newspaper origin and a Congressional investigation 

*See pp. 552 et seq., supra. 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 585 

led to the resignation of Secretary Ballinger, who had forced 
the removal of Gifford Pinchot, head of the Forestry Division 
and the leading conservationist in America, a millionaire and 
an intimate friend of Theodore Roosevelt. The Department 
of the Interior was then placed in charge of Walter L. Fisher, 
a Chicago lawyer, a local reformer, and a conservation leader. 
Not long afterwards, Dickinson resigned from the War De- 
partment, finding that the hold of the bureaucrats upon the 
Department of War was too strong to permit the Secretary to 
accomplish anything/ He was succeeded by the defeated Re- 
publican candidate for Governor in New York State in the 
campaign of 1910, Henry L. Stimson, whose selection was 
considered an effort by the President to bind the loyalty to 
himself of former President Roosevelt. 

Tariff Revision Upward. — In view of his election prom- 
ises, President Taft called a special session of Congress for 
April, 1909, to revise the tariff. The people expected the tariff 
to be scaled downward. Instead the Payne-Aldrich compro- 
mise measure revised the tariff slightly upward, making its 
duties slightly higher than those of any other tariff in our 
history. As incidental features to secure the signature of 
the President, liberal concessions were made to the Philip- 
pines, always near his heart. The people generally hoped for 
a veto ; but were greatly disappointed. 

Postal savings banks were established in all parts of the 
land, with deposits exceeding $50,000,000 by December 31, 
1911. 

The Tour of the Country in 1909. — In the fall of 1909 
the President made a tour of the country, traveling some 
13,000 miles and making some three hundred speeches. At 
Winona, Minnesota, he declared the Payne-Aldrich tariff the 
best so far in the history of the country. This declaration 
aroused bitter criticism. The Congressional election of 19 10 
went heavily against the Republicans. Speaker Joseph G. 
Cannon of Illinois, a politician of a racy character, personally 
interesting but morally indefensible, was succeeded by Champ 
Clark of Missouri, long the Democratic leader of the House 
of Representatives, a scholar and an orator. The Democrats 
now had forty-six majority in a House of three hundred 
and ninety-one members. 

Canadian Reciprocity. — But President Taft had been 

^See pp. 191-192, supra. 



586 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

steadily at work upon a matter of international diplomacy in- 
volving substantial free trade under reciprocity with Canada. 
He forced the agreement through a reluctant Republican 
Senate, assisted by the enthusiastic support of the Democratic 
House, in the summer of 1911 at a special session of Congress. 
This measure was a political coup of major importance and 
was extraordinarily popular with the middle and working 
classes of the American people, who fondly dream that the 
plutocracy will allow tariffs to be made innocuous. 

Suits Against Great Corporations. — Decisions of the 
United States Supreme Court in 191 1 supported the Roosevelt- 
Taft policy in respect to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by order- 
ing the dissolution of the Oil, the Tobacco and several minor 
trusts, from all of which dissolutions, their stockholders came 
out richer than before; nor was any effect upon prices 
favorable to the consumers. 

Three Vetoes. — The special session of Congress passed 
three measures to reduce the tariff. These were known as the 
Wool Bill, the Farmers' Free List, and the Cotton Bill. The 
President vetoed each with the statement that he must wait 
upon a tariff commission that he had appointed in order to 
find out what reductions were fair and proper under the Re- 
publican theory that the manufacturer must be guaranteed a 
reasonable profit. These vetoes were effective since the Demo- 
crats of the House were not numerous enough to put the bills 
through against the vetoes and then to force them upon the 
Republican Senate for passage. 

These vetoes were all unpopular, but worse befell when 
Canada refused, by a large majority in a general election, to 
ratify the reciprocity agreement. Its reason for so doing was 
largely sentimental and natural hatred felt by descendants of 
the exiled Loyalists. A defection already of importance in 
the Republican ranks was thereby greatly strengthened. In- 
surgency became strong generally and dominated the West 
under Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin. In the 
Fall of 1 911 Taft made another circuit of the country; 
and directed judicial proceedings to dissolve the Steel 
Trust. He ended his tour with the assertion that either the 
country must have restored individualism in industry or State 
Socialism. 

His Disposition Changing. — President Taft has written 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 587 

nothing directly for commercial publication, but there have 
been published three volumes of his university and other ad- 
dresses and speeches. A great change took place during his 
administration in his own disposition. At first, he was insen- 
sitive to public opinion, but later he became sensitive. This 
change was due in part to the return of Theodore Roosevelt 
from his African hunt, and to the bitter public criticism of all 
the features of his course with respect to the reduction of the 
tariff. 

During his administration the work upon the Panama Canal 
advanced with notable rapidity and thoroughness. 

Uncertainties. — In the Spring of 1912, the future of Wil- 
liam Howard Taft is highly doubtful. Though his nomination 
to succeed himself is likely, it is by no means certain, A split 
of the party into two factions is entirely possible.^ His re- 
election, despite administrative efficiency of a high order, is 
even more doubtful. Constant Cabinet dissensions have aided 
much to weaken his political position before the country. 
These have turned largely upon questions of the honesty and sin- 
cerity of the Cabinet Secretaries and division and bureau chief s. 
There have been charges of executive betrayals of the public 
interest in respect to forest and coal conservation and of pure 
food legislation. Several prominent official workers for the 
public good were released from Government service and others, 
though retained, were permitted to suffer from continuing 
departmental broils. 

In March, 19 12, Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, head chemist of 
the Department of Agriculture and the leader in the pure food 
and drug movement, was forced out of office by his official 
associates. To this. President Taft unwisely consented. 

Rumors of great governmental and quasi-public corporation 
funds misappropriated to political uses, high prices and slack 
business, the extraordinary influence of Federal office-holders 
in State and local politics and "trust-busting" without con- 
structive policies have made the country feel distrust like that 
in the latter days of Grant. We need leadership in a day 
when we are not sure as to whether we desire again free com- 
petition under regulation, or something else. At least one of 
our greatest corporations, one nominally with one per cent, of 
all the national wealth invested In it, was beginning to be in a 
way a cooperative collective ownership machine of production, 

*See pp. 117, 118, supra. 



588 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

with 150,000 stockholders, many of them being wage-earners 
in its service. 

Reconstitutes the Supreme Court. — To President Taft 
has come the opportunity to reconstitute the Supreme Court 
by selecting five of its Justices. Nothing like it came in so 
brief a period to any other President since Washington. We 
are getting ready for two great changes in the Court. One 
is to enlarge it in order that it may more fully reflect existing 
legal and political opinion, for we have so outgrown the con- 
ditions of the Fathers that the Court rewrites the Constitution 
inevitably. Another change is that the Court has as its present 
Chief Justice a lawyer reared not in the English common law 
but in the Louisiana system which is far less experiential and 
far more Roman, theoretical, logical, rigid, and systematic. 
Chief Justice White is also a Catholic and a former Con- 
federate, both facts with which we shall have to reckon if he 
serves long. He was educated at a Catholic University in the 
District of Columbia and was for a few years Senator from 
Louisiana. 

Tariff Commission. — So unsatisfactory became the tariff 
situation that in 191 o, with partial warrant of law, the Presi- 
dent appointed a tariff commission to report just what tariff 
upon each several item would be fair. This commission made 
an elaborate report in December, 1911, which proved that a 
tariff system cannot be equitable, owing to varieties of condi- 
tions and to fluctuations of labor and other costs. The plan 
was foredoomed to failure because in effect it aims to set up a 
legislature by appointment to do the work of a legislature by 
popular election ; and perforce Congress and people resented it. 

Interstate Commerce Commission and Court. — Simi- 
larly, a most elaborate governmental mechanism, the Inter- 
State Commerce Commission, formed in 1887, and strength- 
ened considerably in 1890 by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 
was made yet more diflicult and complex by the addition of 
an Interstate Commerce Court, in 19 10. In the following 
year the Supreme Court gave a decision by 8 to i (Justice 
Harlan, dissenting) that a reasonable restraint of trade of 
whatever sort is not illegal, — whereby the Court again asserted 
itself as a superlegislature. 

All these matters give support to a growing belief that 
through central government we are presumptuously trying to 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 589 

interfere with natural laws. There is no one man, and there are 
no six hundred judges, commissioners, legislators, presidents, 
secretaries and other chief men, fit and able to manage the 
business affairs of a hundred million people through four 
million square miles of land. 

International Relations. — In the Spring of 191 1, there 
were rumors that Mexico was about to overthrow her auto- 
cratic, though brave and progressive, President Porfirio Diaz, 
then serving his seventh term. The President of. the United 
States promptly ordered a mobilization of the army upon the 
Mexican border and called it "a summer maneuver" for the 
sake of drill, asserting that intervention was wholly out of his 
contemplation. Diaz fell, and Madero succeeded. It was a 
skillful piece of diplomacy; and an excellent example of 
duplicity, for a good purpose. The presence of the American 
troops, — some fifteen thousand in number, — encouraged the 
revolutionists, who were especially active in the northern prov- 
inces, and helped them promptly to win and to set up a new 
government on the ruins of a corrupt despotism. 

But the finest feature of the situation was the easy poise of 
the President. A Polk or a Grant would have annexed at least 
a part of Mexico. A Buchanan or a Cleveland would have 
kept the troops away from the Mexican boundary, which might 
have been worse than to fight at once as several Presidents 
would have been inclined to do, among them Jackson and 
Roosevelt. 

Again, in the Spring of 1912, the President held. in readiness 
for intervention in Mexico a considerable army because of the 
failure of the new Mexican Government to maintain order. 

Whatever other mistakes Taft may have made, he made 
none in this matter. 

Indeed, his course in respect to all international relations 
has been impressively competent, recalling the best traditions 
of such men as the three Adamses, Webster, and Seward. 

Taft has patiently and wisely pursued a policy of advancing 
arbitration treaties with European nations and of encouraging 
the peace movement of the civilized world. This movement is 
not so much a movement as a resistance and a negation. It 
resists the primitive instinct of man to appeal from the status 
quo, from talk and bargain, from inefficient and ineffective 
reason to force and battle. It denies that the issue of war is 



590 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

usually right, for behind the arbitrament of arms, the tradi- 
tional resort to bloodshed is a philosophy of fate or of deter- 
minism or of materialism or even perhaps of agnosticism that 
whatever befalls is just as good as whatever else might have 
befallen. The movement asserts that the parliament of thought 
as revealed in speech is higher in its justice, is more likely to 
help evolve the ultimate man of righteousness than the battle- 
field and that war is wholly and always evil. 

Such is the meaning of the Temple of Peace at The Hague. 

Extension of the Classified Service. — On January i, 
1912, President Taft issued an order transferring 42,000 more 
places from the spoils system to the classified service, entry to 
which depends upon examination. It was an act worthy of 
Grover Cleveland and done in the same matter-of-fact, quiet 
manner. 

The Family of the President. — In 1886 Taft married 
Helen Herron of Cincinnati. They have three children, the 
oldest a son, in 19 12 a student in the Harvard Law School, 
the second a daughter, and the third a son. 

Government Economies. — Late in January, the President 
sent a message to Congress urging the inclusion of all but the 
highest officers within the classified and permanent service, 
and showed how millions of dollars might be saved by thou- 
sands of economies, large and small, many of which were 
specifically cited. The political wisdom of such a publication 
upon the eve of the party conventions is debatable. The 
persons thereby eliminated prospectively became at once bitter 
critics; and the general public was slow to appreciate the 
propositions. 

The Forecast. — In so vast a nation, changes come in a day, 
but nothing has appeared so far indicating a probability that 
William Howard Taft will not rank high among the Presidents 
for personal ability and faithfulness in an era of economic 
change. He may be defeated for reelection and even for re- 
nomination. But he has at least worked for decentralization 
of industry, if not for decentralization of government. Yet 
all centralization is makeshift, for a great people consists of 
individuals needing and enduring but little control, and being 
themselves highly developed and self-reliant. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(References for the general reader.) 

Part I. 

Chapter I. See Part III, below. 

Chapter II. Stanwood, History of the Presidency. Bryce, American 
Commonwealth. Hart, Actual Government. The Federalist. Mes- 
sages and Papers of the Presidents. Macy, Party Organization and 
Machinery. Smith, The Spirit of American Government: A study 
of the Constitution, its origin, influence and relation to democracy. 
Croly, The Promise of American Life. Dunning, Reconstruction, 
Political and Economic. Hart, National Ideals, Historically Traced. 
Records of the Federal Convention (Farrand, edit.)- Trevelyan, 
American Revolution. Burgess, The Civil War and the Constitution. 
Gordy, History of Political Parties. Simons, Social Forces in 
American History. Taylor, Origin and Growth of the Constitution. 

Chapter III. See above. 

Part II. 

Chapter I. Hosmer, Samuel Adams. Tyler, Patrick Henry. Morgan, 
The True Patrick Henry. Franklin, Autobiography (Bige- 
low, edit.). Ford, The Many-sided Franklin. Morse, Benjamin 
Franklin. Fisher, The True Benjamin Franklin. Brown, Hancock, 
His Book. Van Tyne, Loyalists in the American Revolution. Chan- 
cellor, Colonial Union. Fisher, Struggle for American Independence. 

Chapter II. The Constitution. See also references Part I, Chapter II, 
and Part III, text and references. 

Chapter III. Hinsdale, A History of the Presidents Cabinet. 

Chapter IV. Wilson, Washington, the Capital City. Crooks, Memories 
of the White House. Briggs, The Olivia Letters. 

Chapter V. See above. 

Part III. 

Chapter I. Lodge, Washington. Ford, The True George Washington. 

Manuscripts in Washington and at Mount Vernon. 
Chapter II. Morse, John Adams. 
Chapter III. Watson, Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson. Adams, 

History of the United States, 1801-1817. Morse, Thomas Jefferson. 

591 



592 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Chapter IV. Gay, James Madison. Hunt, James Madison. 

Chapter V. Oilman, James Monroe. Adams, James Madison and James 

Monroe. 
Chapter VI. Morse, /. Q. Adams. Adams, Memoirs. 
Chapter VII. Sumner, Andrew Jackson. Peck, The Jacksonian Epoch. 
Buell, History of Andrew Jackson. 

Chapter VIII. Shepard, Martin Van Buren. MacDonald, Jacksonian 
Democracy. Smith, Parties and Slavery. 

Chapter IX. Dawson, Historical Narrative of the Civil and Military 
Services of Major General William Henry Harrison. 

Chapter X. Letters and Times of the Tylers. 

Chapter XI. Jenkins, James Knox Polk. Diary of J. K. Polk. 

Chapter XII. Howard, Zachary Taylor. 

Chapter XIII. Millard Fillmore Papers. • 

Chapter XIV. Hawthorne, Franklin Pierce. Burgess, Middle Period. 
Carroll, Review of Pierce's Administration. 

Chapter XV. Curtis, Life of James Buchanan. Moore, Works of James 
Buchanan, including his own history of his ad linistration. 

Chapter XVI. There are more books and articles about Lincoln than 
about any other three Americans combined, and as many as about 
all other Presidents combined. Only a few may be cited. Nicolay 
and Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History. Morse, Abraham, Lincoln. 
Tarbell, Early Life, and Life. Herndon and Weik, Abraham Lin- 
coln: the true story of a great life. Arnold, History of Abraham 
Lincoln, and the Overthrow of Slavery. 

Chapter XVII. Davis, Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Confederate 
States. Dodd, Jefferson Davis, Davis, A History of the Confed- 
erate States. 

Chapter XVIII. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress. Chadsey, Struggle 
between President Johnson and Congress. Foster, Life of Andrew 
Johnson. DeWitt,. Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson. 

Chapter XIX. Grant, Personal Memoirs. Garland, U. S. Grant, His 
Life and Character. Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen. 

Chapter XX. Howells, Life of R. B. Hayes. Haworth, The Tilden- 
Hayes Disputed Presidential Election of 1876. 

Chapter XXI. Garfield, Writings (Hinsdale, edit.). 

Chapter XXII. Andrews, The United States in Our Own Times. 

Chapter XXIII. Whittle, Grover Cleveland. Williams, Mr. Cleveland, a 
Personal Impression. 

Chapter XXIV. Wallace, General Benjamin Harrison. 

Chapter XXV. Riis, Theodore Roosevelt. Bennett, Roosevelt and the 
Republic. 

Chapter XXVI. Taft, Present Day Problems, and Political Issues and 
Outlooks. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 593 

Neale, The Sovereignty of the States. Hammer, The United States Gov- 
ernment. Halsey (edit.), Great Epochs in American History. 

In general, Schouler, History of the United States under the Constitution. 
-McMaster, History of the People of the United States from the 
Revolution to the Civil War. Rhodes, History of the United States 
after the Comprpmise of 1850. Von Hoist, Constitutional History of 
the United States. Elson, History of the United States. Hart, Ameri- 
can History Told by Contemporaries, Vols. IH and IV. Also the 
works cited for Part One. Also Lives of the Presidents (Wilson, 
edit.); Stoddard, Lives of the Presidents. Encyclopedia Britannica, 
do. Americana, do. International, do. Nelson's. Certain Presidents 
have been the subject of excellent magazine articles, for which see 
Poole's Index. Other Presidents have been neglected, in some 
cases without good warrant in justice. In fine, the current views 
have usually been too favorable because of the use of official power 
to conceal relevant facts, because of hero-worship of visible men 
and because of later developments in remote but inevitable results. 



INDEX 



Abolitionism, 82, 91, 107, 109, 357, 
364, 383, 386, 404, 42s, 439, 441, 444, 
445, 513. 
Adams, Abigail Smith, n, 141, 205, 
206, 242, (characterized) 244, 305, 
306. 
Adams, Charles Francis (family 
characterized), 206, 305, 313, 366, 
467, S07. 
Adams, John, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 32, 
34, 35, (characterized) 37, 40, 43, 
45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55, 56, 68, 71, 
n, 75, l^y, 79, 81, 94, 97, 98, 
(quoted) 98, 135, 140, 159, 161, 168, 
175, 178, 181, 194, 204, 224, 236, 
(life of) 240-252, (characterized) 
243, 253, 254, 25s, 257, 263, 264, 269, 
270, 278, 281, 284, 301, 302, 305, 307, 
309, 316, 321, 331, 333, 372, 380, 384, 
406, 589. 
Adams, John Quincy, 26, 30, 34, 35, 
37, 43, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55, 56, 
58, (characterized) 76, 99, 105, 106, 
109, 159, 162, 163, 164, 166, 168, 178, 
193, 194, 195, 205, 206, 251, 297, 298, 
301, (life of) 304-319. (character- 
ized) 317, 321, 322, 330, 331, 332, 
333, 336, 337, 353, 354, 355, 361, 364, 
367, 369, 371, 373, 377, 401, 486, 509, 
526, 544, 545, 577. 
Adams, Samuel, 22, 23, 24, 67, 71, 93, 
107, (life of) 127-136, (character- 
ized) 133, 140, 141, 14s, 216, 221, 
241, 244, 245, 256, 257, 258, 270, 307, 
317- 
Alaska, Purchase of, 192, 489, 490, 

569- 
Alien and Sedition Acts, 97, 248, 249, 

263, 264, 284. 
Anarchism, 561. 
Anti-imperialism, 104, 117, 166, 353, 

385, 556, 557, 581. 
Anti-Masons, 100, 338, 342; party his- 
tory of, 104. 
Anti-trust Act, Sherman, 580, 584, 
586, 588. 



Aristocracy in America, 76, 97, 115, 

230, 231, 321, 346. 
Arnold, Benedict, (characterized) 68, 

225, 228, 258, 260. 
Arthur, Chester Alan, 29, 30, 31, 33, 
34, 39, 43, 45, 48, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 
58, 60, 64, 85, 86, 165, 172, 1 95, 208, 

519, 525; (life of) 527-532, 533, 

579- . 
Assassinations of Presidents, 62, 446 ; 

521, 528. See also lives of Jack- 
son, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley. 
Assumption of State debts, 235, 236, 

281, 282. 
Astor, John Jacob (First), 268, 396; 

(second), 167. 
Bancroft, George, 365, 382, 384, 387. 
Banking, 30, 60, 76, 89, 94, loi, 114, 

165, 354, 358, 359, 368. 
Barbary pirates. War with, 265, 266, 
Beecher, Henry Ward, 112, 167, 305, 

443, 535, 575. 
Bell, John, 102, 423, 474, 432, 444, 486. 
Benton, Thomas Hart, 354, (quoted) 

356, 374, 389, 395, 398, 417 453, 564. 
Bibliography, 592. 
Biddle, Nicholas, 94, (characterized) 

338, 344, 362. See also National 

Bank. 
Bierce, Ambrose, (quoted) 511. 
Birth-rate, 88, 89, 90, 97, 115, 400, 

541. 
Black, Jeremiah S., 417, 424, 516. 
Blaine, James Gillespie, 30, 45, 177, 

195, 509, (characterized) 514, 524, 

525, 526, 527, 531, 535 et seq., 549, 

551, 560. 
Blair, Montgomery, 447, 448, 465. 
Blair, Francis Preston, 502. 
Booth, John Wilkes, 422, 469 et seq., 

(characterized) 470, 521. 
Breckenridge, John Cabell, 423, 424, 

427, 444, 486. 
Briggs, Emily E., (quoted) 84. 
Brown, John, 82, 113, 318, 420 et seq., 

466. 



595 



59^. 



INDEX 



Bryan, William Jennings, 30, 31, 47. 
56, 120, 167, 559, 570, 583; (char- 
acterized) 552. 

Buchanan, James, 28, 30, 33, 34, 38, 
40, 43, 44, 45, 48, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 
78, 79, 83, 100, 102, 163, 164, 1 68, 
177, 207, 208, 211, 236, 321, 384, 408, 
412; (life of) 412-429, 431, 440, 
446, 463, 594. 

Burr, Aaron, 25, 73, 97, 226, 250, 263, 
264, (characterized) 267, 268, 291, 
324, 338, 347, 348, 349, 368. 

Business interests, 76, 77, 81, 85, 87, 
103, 165, 450, 474. See also Capital 
and Labor; "Interests, The"; Plu- 
tocracy. 

Butler, Benjamin Franklin (of Mas- 
sachusetts), 118, 456, 490. 

Cabinet enlargement, 197. 

Cabinet secretaries, 151, 173 et seq., 
343, 344, 447, 488, 505, 566, 567, 582. 

Cabinet selection. Principles of, 183- 
188, 189. 

Calhoun, John Caldwell, 93, 103, 105, 
107, 167, 193, 194, 195, 301, (quoted) 
311, 314, 316, 321, 330, 333, 341, 355, 
356, 395, 397, 476- 

California, Admission of, 394, 397, 
402, 486. 

Canada, 65, 91, 117, 325, 286, 362, 462, 
528, 569, 586, 591. 

Capital and Labor, 70 et seq., 79, 87, 
92, 96, 196, 297, 303, 22,^, 358 et seq., 
421, 459, 479, 488, 541, 547, SSi, 559, 
567, 568, 572, 580, 584. 

Carnegie, Andrew, 546, 547. 

Carroll, Charles, 47, 142. 

Cass, Lewis, 47, 56, 61, 108, iii, 193, 
194, 195, 334, 366, 367, 386, 388, 390, 
(characterized) 394, 395, (quoted) 
395, 396, 397, 408, 409, 411, 417, 
(quoted) 425. 

Centralization, 30, 60, 63, 65, 73, 82, 
86, 105, III, 149, 172, 199, 232, 237, 
246, 249, 340, 357, 361, 379, 401, 410, 
419, SI 7, 534, 545, 547, 554, 57i, 584, 
589, 590. 

Chase, Salmon Portland, 112, 190, 
(characterized) 193, 443, 447, 463, 
467, 482, 490, 503, 508. 

Chief Justice, 20, 21, 98, I39, I97, 233, 
23s, 238, 268, 344, 381, 466, 490, 508, 
538. 

China, 558. 



Chinese, Exclusion of the, 525, 530, 

.537. 
Civil Service Reform, 103, 165, 172, 

316, 332, 354, 505, 518, 530, 536, 537, 

564, 573, 590. 
Civil War. See Interstate War. 
Clark, Champ, (introduction by) 9- 

II, 585. 

Clay, Henry, 30, 56, 61, 75, 80, 105, 
106, 107, 108, 112, 177, 194, 195, 286, 
297, 310, 311, 313, 314, 315, 327, 330, 
333, 337, 342, 343, 344, 345, 355, 356, 
360, 363, 365, 366, 367, 371, 375, 377. 
378, 381, 382, 383, 384, 385, 387, 389, 
394, 396, 397, 398, 400, 402, 436, 485, 
526, 546. 

Cleveland, (Stephen) Grover, (quot- 
ed) title page, 19, 22, 29, 30, 31, 
32, 33, 35, 39, 40, 43, 45, 46, 48, 49, 
51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 64, 72, 85, 
86, 100, 104, 165, 168, 172, 177, 181, 
19s, 205, 208, 209, 236, 243, 313, 321, 
367, 411, 511, 530, 532, (life of) 
532-543, 545, 548, 549, 556, 562, 577, 
589, 590. 

Cobb, Howell, 397, 416, (quoted) 426. 

Compromise of 1850, 106, 379, 397, 
398, 402, 403. 

Confederate States, The, of North 
America, 118, 378, 379, 389, 427, 
454 455, 456, 457, 465, 468, 471, 473 
et seq., 505. 

Congress, The, of the United States, 
83, 152, 162, 164, 165, 168, 175, 178, 
201, 202, 233, 235, 297, 340. 

Congress, The Continental. See Con- 
gress, The, of the Confederation, 
23, 132, 142, 146, 150, 223, 225, 229, 
232, 244, 255, 257, 273, 437, 438. 

Conservation of National Resources, 
117, 196, 520, 573, 584. 

Constitution, The, of the Confed- 
erate States, 475, 476. 

Constitution, The, of the United 
States, 8, 9, 20, 22, 25, 69, 71, 82, 
83, 96, 102, 106, 107, III, 116, 117, 
123, 134, 139, 150, 151, 159, 160, 163, 
164, 171, 200, 230, 268, 281, 284, 297, 
340, 352, 353, 418, 437, 446, 451, 452, 
458, 464, 486, 488, 491, 504, 505, 517, 
554, 569, 588. 

Constitution, Strict, versus broad 
construction of, 97 et seq., 569. A 
system of checks and balances, 20, 
22, 96, 171. 



INDEX 



59; 



Constitutional Convention, The fed- 
eral, 20, 23, 25, 44, 69, 74, 96, 98, 
147, 148, 230, 231, 248, 251, 274 et 
seq., 283, 339. 

Convention at Annapolis, 230, 274. 

Conventions, Party, 92, 99, 100, 165, 
169, 338, 339, 343. 

Copperheads, The, 103, 451, 461, 502, 
536. 

Corporations, 30, 364, 586. 

Corruption, Political, 85, 103, 116, 
118, 119, 130, 161, 162, 164, 16s, 178, 
179, 193, 202, 203, 231, 338, 344. 345, 
355, 356, 383, 384, 402, 429, 455, 463, 
502, S03, 504, 506, 508, 509, 512, S13, 
S17. 524, 525, 530, 553, 557. 559, 570, 
583. 584, 585, 587. 

Crawford, William Harris, 287, 301, 
(characterized) 313, 314, 327, 330, 
352, S08. 

Cuba, 403, 415, 555, 556, 557, 560. 

Currency, 30, 60, 88, 94, 103, 104, 114, 
115, 118, 119, 250, 260, 345, 361, 362, 
479, 508, 518, 540, 542, 547. 552, 559, 
560. 

Czolgoscz, Leon, 521, 561. 

Dark Horse Candidates, 55, 165, 382, 
407, 408, 445, 525, 545- 

Davis, Jefferson, 54, 102, 178, 391, 
392, 397, 409, 427, 465, 468, 471, 
(Hfe of) 473-482, (characterized) 
475, 476, 498 et seq. 

Declaration of Independence, 24, 133, 
134, 146, 245, 257, 258, 459, 559. 

Deification, The Progressive, of 
Washington and of Lincoln, 445, 
446. 

Democracy in America, 30, 31, 94, 95, 
100, 158, 159, 166, 167, 169, 195, 196, 
197, 225, 226, 230, 231, 253, 269, 285, 
312, 319, 321, 328 et seq., 345, 346, 
348 et seq., 461, 462. 

Democratic party, History of, 97-105, 
no. III, 353, 423, 542, 543, 552, 553- 

Democrats, 74 92, 93, 94, 95, 100, 107, 
III, 112, 113, 249, 309, 315, 316. 

Departments of Federal Govern- 
ment, 84, 178, 179, 180, 189, 190, 191, 
343. See also Cabinet secretaries. 

District of Columbia, 65, 199 et seq., 
239, 277, 374, 466, 470, 508, 573, 574. 

Dolliver, Jonathan Prentiss, 118. 

Douglas, Stephen Arnold, 28, 29, 102, 
103, 109, in, 112, 367, 397, 408, 420, 



421, 423, 424, 428, 431, 436, 437, 439, 
441, 442, 444, 445, 477, 486, 

Dred Scott decision, 28, 113, 166, 303, 
340, 417 et seq., 425, 452, 477, 490, 
528. 

Economic determinism, 405, 406. 

Education, loi. 

Electoral College, 31, 99, 100, 170, 
263, 266, 314, 316, 353, 369, 426. 

Electoral Commission, 29, 511, 516. 

Ellsworth, Oliver, 238. 

Emancipation, 417, 433, 451, 456, 458. 

Embargo Acts, 266, 285, 286. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, (quoted) 
17. 93, 167, (quoted) 173. 

Farewell Address of Washington, 
238, 299. 

Federal party. History of, 96-97. 

Federalists, 26, yz, 93, 95, 97, 98, 105, 
112, 113, 232, 233, 241, 246, 247. 251, 
252, 266, 267, 268, 296, 302, 308, 309, 
349, 350, 554. 

Fillmore, Millard, 27, 30, 32, 33, 34 
38, 43, 45, 48, 49, 50, SI, 54 55, 56, 
58, 78, 79, 91, 102, 163, 164 168, 177, 
194 207, 394, (life of) 399-405, 4o8, 
412, 413, 415, 416, 431. 531- 

Florida, Purchase of, 297, 311, 312, 
327, 401. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 22, 24, 49, 67, 75, 
83, 98, 128, 133, 134 139, 143, (life 
of) 144, 149, (characterized) 148, 
149, 167, 220, 244, 246, 251, 254, 257, 
270, 271, 283, 306, 384 577- 

Fraud of 1876, The, 103, 516, 5x7, 
535. See also Tilden, SamuelJones. 

Free silver, 103, 539, 547, 552, 553, 
558, 559. 

Free Soil party, 108, in, 113, 366, 

Free trade, 94 95. See also Tariff. 
Freedman's Bureau, The, 201, 488, 

524. 
Fremont, John Charles, 56, 113, 417, 

440, 463. 
Fugitive Slave Act, 113. 290, 377, 398, 

403, 410, 423, 424. 
Fuller, Melville Weston, 538. 
Gadsden Purchase, 411. 
Gallatin, Albert, 193, 264, 265, 287, 

(quoted) 324. 
Garfield, James Abram, 21, 29, 30, 32, 

32, 34 27, 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 5i, 52, 

54, 55, 56, 58, 62, 64 (character- 



598 



INDEX 



ized) 85, 165, 177, 19s, 20Sj 208, 516, 
517, (life of) 521-527, 545, 55i. 567. 

George the Third, King, 74, 128, 131, 
133, 216, 257, 258. 

Gerrymandered nation, A, 170, 388, 
396, 397, 42s, 538, 546, 547- 

Gladstone, William Ewart, (quoted) 
477- 

Government, Tripartite, 174, 193, 566. 
See also Cabinet secretaries, De- 
partments, Constitution. 

Grand Army of the Republic, 51, 79, 

115, 553- 

Grant, (Hiram) Ulysses [Simpson], 
22, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 2Z, 34, 38, 43, 
44, 45, 48, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 61, 
64, 84, 85, 116, 155, 162, 164, 170, 
172, 178, 194, 195, 201, 203, 208, 209, 
211, 264, 382, 454, 456, (character- 
ized) 460, 461, 463, 464, 465, 468, 
469, 470, 480, 482, 487, 489, 491, 
(life of) 492-511, (characterized) 
511, 524, 529, 543, 548, 554, 561, 575, 
579, 587, 589. 

Greeley, Horace, 56, no, 112, 114, 

116, 366, 427, 507, 508, 547. 
Greenback party. History of, 118, 119. 
Greenbackers, 103, 511, 525, 530. 
Guiteau, Charles Julius, 521 et seq. 
Habeas corpus. Writ of, 81, 115, 164, 

326, 403, 451, 452, 461. 

Hague Court, The, 568, 590. 

Hale, John Parker, 108 (character- 
ized) 108, 109, no, 112, 366, 397, 
409. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 24, 25, 60, 70, 
72, 94, 97, 112, 160, 161, 190, 196, 
229, 233, (characterized) 235, 236, 
237, 238, 241, 246, 247, 249, 250, 252, 
262, 264, 267, 270, 274 (character- 
ized) 278, 279, 283, 291, 292, 299, 
308, 338, 348, 349, 353, 357, 399. 

Hancock, John, 22, 23, 47, 128, 135, 
139, (life of) 140-144, (character- 
ized) 142, 224, 228, 234, 241, 244, 
257, 270. 

Hancock, Winfield Scott, 525. 

Hanna, Marcus Alonzo, 552, (char- 
acterized) 553, 554, 584. 

Harrison, Benjamin, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 
37, 43, 44, 45, 48, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 
59, 62, 86, 91, 162, 165, 168, 19s, 20s, 
371, 538, (life of) 543-549, S64, 569, 
578, s8o. 



Harrison, William Henry, 21, 22, 27, 

29, 30, 32, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 
45, 4^, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 64, 
77, 99, 102, 105, 106, 171, 172, 177, 
206, 207, 208. 358, 363, 364, 365, (life 
of) 368-372, 373, 374, 375, 379, 391, 
392, 394, 406, 430, 431, 436, 487, 526, 
544. 

Hartford Convention, The, 96, loi, 

326. 
Haviraii, 22, 541, 562, 563, 568. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 27, 28, 406. 
Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, 20, 29, 

30, 34, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 51, 54, 55. 
56, 57, 58, 61, 84, (characterized) 
85, 118, 164, 165, 166, 168, 172, 177, 
195, 202, 203, 208, 211, (life of) 
512-520, (characterized) 520, 525, 
529, 550, 551, 577- 

Henry, Patrick, 22, 24, 37, 67, 71, 93, 
95, (life of) 136-140, 222, 242, 244, 
254, 256, 258, 270, 280, 307, 369. 

House of Governors, 573. 

Immigration of foreigners, 81, 87, 88, 
104, 109, no, 115, 170, 172, 229, 248, 
383, 460, 521, 528, 530, 554. See also 
Birth-rate. 

Impeachment, 83, 155, 161, 569; of 
Justice Chase, 269; of Justice Peek, 
414, 415; of Andrew Johnson, 
President, 489 et seq., 505, 519. 

"Impending Crisis," Helper's, 422, 
423. 

Income Tax, 554. 

Indian Wars, 218, 219, 220, 234, 324, 
335, 362, 369, 370, 391, 392, 434, 468. 

Individualism, 94, 95, 122, 123, 225, 
232, 285, 586, 590. 

"Interests, Thei" 85, 337, 594, 585- 
See also Corporations, Plutocracy. 

Internal improvements, 60, 105, 112, 
"5, 196, 303, 315, 327, 336, 337, 352, 
354, 357, 364, 401, 439, 485, 530. 

Interregnum, The, between Presi- 
dential election and inauguration, 
128, 163, 168, 4261 446. 

Interstate Commerce, 537, 584, 588. 

Interstate War, The, 60, 64, 66, 79 et 
seq., 106, 160, 161, 168, 234, 282, 340, 
389, 432, 447 et seq., 494 et seq., 503, 
508, S13, 523, 525, 534, 535, 544, SSo, 
572. 

Irving, Washington, 356. 

Jackson, Andrew, 21, 22, 26, 27, 30, 
32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 43, 44, 45, 



INDEX 



599 



46, 48, 49. 51. 52, 54. 55, 56. 58, 61, 
62, 72, 74, "](), (characterized) TJ, 
81, 84, 85, 91, 99, 100, 102, 104, los, 
106, 112, 15s, 159, 160, 162, 163, 166, 
168, 169, 171, 172, 176, 177, 181, 191, 
194, 205, 209, 236, 262, 287, 296, 311, 
313, 314, (life of) 320-346, (char- 
acterized) 321, 351, 353, 354, 355, 
356, 357, 358, 364, 365, 366, 368, 369, 
370, 371, m, 374, 380, 382, 384, 388, 
390, 40s, 406, 415, 425, 430, 431, 435, 

451, 452, 485, 501, 506, 514. 533. 543. 
550, 572, 577. 589- 

Japan, 404, 411, 571, 572. 

Jay, John, 233, 234, 235, 237, 238, 274, 
279, 280, 291, 306. 

Jay's Treaty, 237, 238, 284, 293, 331, 
376. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 7, 24, 25, 30, 33, 
34, 37, 40, 43, 44, 45. 48, 49, 5i, 52. 
54. 55. 56, 58, 61, 71, 73, (character- 
ized) 74. 75, 79, 86, 91. 93, 98. 99. 
102, 103, (quoted) 104, 133, 136, 159, 
160, 161, 162, 166, 168, 177, 194, 199, 
200, 203, 206, 207, 211, 233, 235, 236, 
237, 241, 246, 247, 248, 251, 252, (life 
of) 252-271, (characterized) 254, 
272, 278, 284, 28s, 286, 289, 290, 294, 
295, 296, 299, 300, 301, 302, 304, 307, 
309, 310, 313, 317. 321. 328, 329, 335. 
339, 349. 351, 354. 357. 374, 384. 43i, 

452, 459. 504, 533, 543. 558. 
Johnson, Andrew, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 

43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54. 55, 

56, 58, 64, (characterized) 83, 91, 100, 
104, 116, 162, 168, 176, 178, 181, 192, 
194, 208, 209, 380, 400, 429, 463, 469, 
(life of) 483-492, 501, 502, 505. 519, 
522, 531, 533- 

Johnson, (Bessie) Elizabeth Mc- 
Cardle, 39, (characterized) 207, 
484. 

Judges, tenure of, 98; nature of, 
352. 353, 354; respect for, 414; cor- 
ruption of, 515, 517- See also Im- 
peachment. 

Kansas-Nebraska Act, iii, 410, 415, 
429, 486, 489, 523. 

Kent, Chancellor James, 21, 348, 351, 
(quoted) 35i- 

Kentucky- Virginia Resolutions, 422. 

"King Caucus," 99. 169, 241. 

Kitchen Cabinet, 333, 343- 

Know-Nothings, 109, 404. 

LaFollette, Robert Marion, 118. 



Lawyers as Presidents, 54, 348. 

Lee, Richard Henry, 129, 133, 

(quoted) 239, 245, 280, 289. 
Lee, Robert Edward, 379, 422, 449, 

458, 460, 462, 465, 468, 480, 481, 497 

et seq. 
Liberty party, History of, 107, 108, 

169. 375, 383. 

Limitations of Presidential powers, 
154. 155- See also Presidential 
Powers. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 21, 27, 28, 29, 30, 
32. 33, 34, 36. 43. 44, 45, 46, 47, 48. 
49. 51, 52, 54. 55, 56, 58, 61, 62, 64, 
80, 86, 91, 99, 100, 102, 103, 107, 112, 
113, 114, 116, 133, 155, 163, 164, 165, 
166, 167, 169, 171, 175, 177, 190, 191, 
192, 193, 194, 19s, 203, 205, 206, 
(characterized) 207, 208, 211, 232, 
236, 264, (quoted) 281, 283, 302, 
321, 328, 366, 367, 369, 375, 380, 386, 
391, 392, 404, 405, 423, 424, 428, 429, 
(life of) 429-472, (characterized) 
442, 443, 473, 474, 475, 478, 480, 482, 
484, 485, 486, 487, 488, 490, (quoted) 
496, (quoted) 497, 498, 499, 505. 
507, 508, 521, 523, 526, 533, 549, 574. 

Lincoln, Mary Todd, 38, 243, (char- 
acterized) 437, 471. 

"Lost Cause, The," 475, 481, 482. 

Louisiana Lottery, The, 547. 

Louisiana Purchase, 66, 89, 264, 265, 
274, 285, 294, 29s, 308. 

Loyalists, Exile of the, 216, 217. 

Lowell, James Russell, cited, 106, 
(quoted) 216, (quoted) 430, (quot- 
ed) 432. 

McClellan, George Brinton, 56, 453, 
454, 455, 456, (characterized) 457. 
458, 464, 46s. 466, 480, 496, 497, 530. 

McKinley, William, 21, 22, 29, 30, 34, 
39, 45. 47. 48. 51. 52, 54, 55, S6, 58, 
62, 64, 72, 86, 91, 165, 166, 167, 177, 
195. 203, 20s, 206, 210, 368, 387, 433. 
522, 545, 546, (life of) 549-561, 
562, 565. 577, 583. 

Madison, Dolley Parke, 37, 40, 206, 
284. 

Madison, James, 25, 26, 30, 32, 34, 35, 
43, 44, 45, 48, 49. 51. 52. 54, 55, S6. 
58, 69, 71, 75, 79, 82, 86, 93, 96, 98. 
99, 100, (quoted) 125, 162, 165, 166, 
168, 193, 194, 203, 204, 205, 248, 260, 
264, 265, 270, (life of) 271-289, 290, 
291, 29s, 296, 301, 302, 305. 310, 311, 



6oo 



INDEX 



313. 321, 331, 333, 339, 350, 353, Z(>7, 

309, 387, 453, 459. 501. 
Maj,6"Tiyes, Government by, 8. 
Mankind, Orders of, 253. 
Marcy, William Lamed, 178, 366, 

408, 409, 411, 412. 
Marshall, John, 81, 82, 93, 162, 194, 

231, 248, 249, 250, 251, 254, 267, 302, 

335, 340, 344, 452. 
Martin Luther, 269, 270, (charac- 
terized) 278. 
Mexican War, 22, 27, 72, 78, 104, 108, 

166, 376, 384, 385 et seq., 392 et seq., 

407, 408, 438, 486, 494, 525, 557- 
Mexico, 589. 
Missouri Compromise, The, 76, 106, 

297, 303, 340, 351, 396, 402, 403, 408, 

410, 418. 
Monroe Doctrine, The, 162, 165, 298 

et seq., 312, 321, 395, 542, 545, 546, 

s^, 567, 568. 

Monroe, James, 25, 26, 30, 32, 34, 40, 
43, 44, 45, 48, 51, 54 55, 56, 58, 75, 
79, 91, 93, 99, 159, 162, 164, 168, 177, 
193, 206, 247, 264, 280, 284, 287, 
(life of) 289-304, (characterized) 
301, 302, 311, 327, 331, 23Z, 409, 562. 

Morgan, John Pierpont, 143, 504, 563, 
573, 575- 

Mormonism, 90, 113, 388, 403, 530, 
541, 547. 

Mortality of Presidents, 171, 172. 
See also Assassinations. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 68, 74, 105, 231, 
246, 261, 262, 264, 265, 285, 286, 287, 
292, 294, 295, 300, 301, 308, 310, 325, 
578. 

National Bank, The, 94, loi, 106, 235, 
262, 287, 315, 336, 337, 338, 343, 344, 
357, 361, 362, 364, 374 376, 386. 

National Banks, 114, 160, 162. See 
also Banking. 

National debt. The, 81, loi, 102, 114, 
IIS, 118, 160, 23s, 264, 337, 345, 357, 
361, 5pS, 540, 541, 545, 548. 

Naturalization laws, 73. 

Nelson, Thomas, 47, 142, 239, 258. 

Northwest Ordinance, The, 94, 437, 
546. 

Northwest Territory, The, 369, 375, 
546, 547. 

Nullification, 94, 103, 106, 337 et seq., 
422. 

Oregon, 353, 382, 386, 387, 439. 

Ostend Manifesto, The, 112, 113, 415. 



Panama Canal, 72, 182, 569, 582, 587. 
Pan-American Congress, The, 315, 

346, 347, 353, 545, 546, 560. 
Panic of 1837, The Jackson-Van 

Buren, 160, 358 et seq., 371. 
Panic of 1857, The Pierce-Buch- 
anan, 421. 
Panic of 1893, 540. 
Panic of 1907, The Roosevelt, 574, 

575. 
Parker, Alton Brooks, 56, 569, 570, 

583. 
Party leaders as Presidential candi- 
dates, 55. 
Party platforms, 31, 357. 
Pensions, 64, 81, 537, 540, 546. 
Petition, Right of. See Right of Pe- 
tition. 
Philippine Islands, 22, 66, 86, 168, 

556, S68, 581, 585. 
Phillips, - Wendell, 425, 427, 441, 

(quoted) 445, 463. 
Pierce, Franklin, 27, 28, 30, 33, 34, 43, 
45, 48, SO, 51, 54 55, 56, 57, 58, 78, 
79, 99, 102, 109, 163, 168, 172, 178, 
207, 2b8, (life of) 405-412, (char- 
acterized) 407, 413, 415, 429, 431, 
441, (quoted) 474, 476, 486. 
Platforms, Party. See Party Plat- 
forms. 
Plutocracy, 46, 60, 62, 72, 84, 85, 86, 
115, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 165, 185, 
227, 228, 239, 247, 250, 281, 282, 302, 
376, 507, 508, 513, 553, 554 571, 579, 
584. See also "Interests, The." 
Political issues, 30, 31, 60, 61, 90, 
102, 103, 104, 117, 118, 195, 196, 382, 
383, 398, 399, 410, 524, 535, 547, 548, 
549, 559, 570, 571, 572, 583, 584. 
Political methods, 66, 183, 184, 189, 
249, 250, 327, 354 355, 358, 383, 384 
393, 394 517, 533, 553- 
Polk, James Knox, 20, 22, 27, 28, 30, 
22, 34 Z(>, 38, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 
51, 54 55, 56, S8, 61, 72, (character- 
ized) 78, 86, 91, 99, 102, 155, 163, 
166, 172, 191, 201, 205, 207, 302, 365, 
376, 377, (life of) 379-389, 390, 392, 
393, 396, 407, 411, 412, 431, 438, 453, 
485, 487, 520, 557, 589. 
Populism, 120, 121, 539. 
Population, 64, 88, 109, 158, 159, 196, 
215, 216, 217, 240, 252, 271, 289, 304, 
320, 346, 369, 372, 379, 390, 399, 405, 



INDEX 



6oi 



412, 429, 473, 483, 492, 512, 521, 527, 
532, 543, 549, 562, 578. 

Porto Rico, 89, 582. 

Presidency, Respect for the office, 
11; a kaleidoscope, 20; a web of 
fate, 22 et seq.; not solely execu- 
tive, 35; requirements for, 59, 127, 
128; short term, 252; powers of 
the, 127 et seq., 265, 451, 488, 50S- 

President as leader, 8, 30. 

Presidents, Births and deaths of, 43. 

Presidential ages, 44. 

Presidential manners, 42, 549, 550. 

Presidential names and nicknames, 

S3' 494- ^„ „ 

Presidential reforms, 168, i8s, Sio. 
Presidential scholarships, 51. 
Presidential States, 44. 45- 
Presidential succession, 537. 
Presidential temperament, 36. 
Presidential tenure, 122, 490, 491. 
Presidential wealth, 45, 46, 57, 60, 78. 
Progressives, 117, 122, 572, 586. 
Public lands, 73, 7(>, 77, 80, loi, 113, 
.115, 336, 337, 342, 345. 359, 362, 369, 

370, 439, 486. 
Public opinion, 63, 66, 297, 554, 57i- 
Race question, 90, 92, 116, 201, 275, 

282, 353, 374, 375, 492, 5 19, 520, 525, 

528, 529. 556, 557. 558, 559. 571, 572. 
Railroads, 30. 
Randolph, John, 269, 314, 31 5, 34i, 

374, 375- 
Recall of judicial decisions, 572. 
Recall of officers, 100, 122, 491. 
Reciprocity, 117, 560. 
Reconstruction, 85, 92. 103, 116, 201, 

202, 482, 486 et seq., 505, 513, 514, 

519. 525, 541, 542, 560. 
Referendum, 20, 284, 572. 
Religious faith of Presidents, 54. 
Reproduction of population, 95. See 

also Birth-rate. 
Republican party, History of, loo-i 18. 
Republicans, 90, 92, 93, 107, 108, 109, 

118, 165, 166, 169, 202, 203, 411, 416, 

419, 440. 
Revolutionary War, 94, 95, 97, I59, 

160, 223 et seq., 256 et seq., 305 ^^ 

seq., 322, 406. 
Right of petition, 76, 317 et seq., 401, 

486. 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 20, 29, 30, 34, 

35, 39, 43. 45. 47. 48, 5°, 51. 52. 54, 



55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 64, (character- 
ized) 86, 91, 118, 155, 160, 165, 
(characterized) 166, 167, 168, 171, 
181, 184, 185, 191, 192, 195, 200, 202, 
203, 204, 209, 210, 236, 241, 302, 411, 
557, 559, 560, (life of) 562-578. 579, 
587. 

Russia, 571. 572. 

Santo Domingo, Proposed annexa- 
tion of, 505, 510, 568. 

Scott, Winfield, 78, 106, 107, 109, 
(quoted) 163, 327, 341, 393, 394. 
407, 408, (characterized) 409, 427, 
428, 451, 453, (quoted) 478. 

Secession, 341, 377, 398, 424, 426, 427, 
446, 473, 474. 536. 

Second term, 57, 168, 313, 463. S09, 
549. 

Sectionalism, 100, 115, 170, 303. 336, 
385, 388, 408, 411, 419, 423. 441, 444, 
445. 519. 

Sedition Act. See Alien and Sedition 
Acts. 

Separation of Church and State, 74, 
120, 258, 279, 407, 536, 581. 

Seward, William Henry, 109, no, 112, 
178, 192, 193, 194, 195, 366, 377, 397, 

400, 401, 424, 441, 443, 444, 447, 467, 
469, 470, 478, 482, 489, 491, 492, 526, 

589. 
Seymour, Horatio, 56, 103, (quoted) 

462, 502, 508. 
Sherman, John, 118, 518, 524, 545, 

553. 554. 580. 
Single tax, 563. 
Slavery, 48, 60, 70, 72, 76, 79, 82,102,107, 

108, III, 112, 113, 196, 201, 221, 222, 

255. 275, 280, 288, 290, 297, 311, 317. 

318, 351. 352. 357. 365, 374, 379. 385. 

387. 388, 394, 395, 396, 397. 398, 399. 

401, 402, 403, 404, 415^ 417, 418, 419. 
421, 422, 423, 428, 456, 458. 459, 478, 
528, 529, 572. 

Socialists, 92, 119, 121, 122, 134, 232, 
439, 508, 586. 

Social question. The, 69 et seq., 216, 
258, 394, 405, 470, 541- 

Solid South, The, 92, 103, 113. 114. 
303. 315. 395, 396, 419. 425, 519, 547, 
560, 570. See also Gerrymandered 
Nation. 

Spanish War, The, 72, 116, 548, 555 
et seq., 564 et seq. 

Speaker of the House of Representa- 
tives, Office of, 197, 381, 



602 



INDEX 



Spoils system, 164, 329, 331, 349, 37i, 
375, 432, 433, 590. 

"Spot Resolutions," 392, 438. 

"Squatter Sovereignty," in, 395, 396, 
410, 419, 421, 440. 

Stanton, Edwin McMasters, 193, 
(quoted) 194, 195. 4i7, 453, 469, 
471, 488 et seq., 498, 501, 503- 

State's rights, 30, 60, 77, 82, 97, in, 
144, 177, 196, 232, 234, 249, 284, 315, 
237, 338, 341, 342, 374, 2,77, 379, 395, 
41 S, 416 419, 422, 426, 486, 517, 534, 
546. 

Stephens, Alexander Hamilton, 400, 
467, 480. 

Stevens, Thaddeus, 116, 181, 489, 491. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. See "Uncle 
Tom's Cabin." 

Suffrage, abrogated in District of 
Columbia, 508, 509 ; equal, 21 ; man- 
hood, 21, 100, 200, 314, 316, 349, 375, 
377, 378, 547; negro, 504, 505, 517- 

Summer Capital, 210. 

Sumner, Charles, 112, 116, 181, (char- 
acterized) 366, 505, 507. 

Supreme Court, 20, 81, 84, 93, 161, 
162, 176, 231, 238, 250, 251, 267, 268, 
269, 284, 302, 335, 339, 340, 414, 415, 
417, 418, 419, 451, 452, 516 et seq., 
538, 588. 

Syndicalists, 121. 

Taft, William Howard, 7, 30, 32, 34, 
35, 3^, 39, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, So, 51, 
54, 55, 56, 58, 64, (characterized) 

87, 100, 162, 167, 191, 195, 203, 209, 
210, 211, 216, 241, 302, 506, 557, 566, 
575, 577, (life of) 578-590. 

Tammany Hall, 264, 351, 515. 

Toney, Roger Brooke, 28, 72, 81, 83, 
164, 194, 195, 334, 340, 343, 344, 
(characterized) 418, 419, 428, 441, 
451, 452, 487. 

Tariff, The, 29, 30, 51, 60, 76, 80, 86, 

88, 92, 103, IDS, 115, 117, 167, 169, 
170, 196, 280, 287, 303, 304, 31S, 317, 
319, 327, 336, 337, 341, 342, 352, 358, 
2^3, 37 A, 382, 383, 386, 401, 486, 530, 
537, 539, 541, 546, 550, 552, 553, 554, 
555, 585, 588, 593. 

Taylor, Zachary, 27, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 
38, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 51, 54, 55, 56, 
58, 61, 78, 99, 102, 107, 163, 172, 181, 
194, 205, 207, 366, 367, 38s, 386, 388, 

391, 401, 402, 409, 415, 428, 430, 431, 



439, 475, 476, 4S7, 490, 500, 501, 520, 
525. 

Ten Commandments, The, 36, 321, 
566. 

Texas, Annexation of, 365, 367, 377, 
382, 384, 392, 394, 401, 486. 

Third term, 20, 168, 247, 250, 313, 343, 
509, 574. 

Tilden, Samuel Jones, 47, 56, 61, 103, 
104, 165, 366, SIX, (life of) 512 et 
seq. 

Trade unions, no, 580, 583. 

Treaty of Ghent, 296, 309, 326. 

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 387. 

Treaty of Washington, 505. 

Treaty of Portsmouth, 571, 572. 

Trumbull, Lyman, 440, 452, 516, 552. 

Trusts, 559, 567, 574, 584- See also 
Corporations. 

Two-thirds rule, 357, 365, 408, 423. 

Tyler, John, 22, 27, 30, 32, 34, 36, 40, 
43, 44, 45, 48, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 79, 
99, 100, 102, 104, 106, 162, 168, 205, 
207, 208, 364, 36s, 371, (life of) 
372-379, (characterized) 378, 380, 
394, 412, 413, 431, 472, 531, 533, 544, 
577. 

"Uncle Tom's Cabin," 403, 416. 

United States Steel Corporation, 574, 
575, 586, 587, 591. 

Vallandigham, Clement Laird, 412, 
461, 464, 471, 502. 

Van Buren, Martin, 27, 30, 32, 34, 38, 40, 
43, 45, 48, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 77, 
79, 86, 99, 100, loi, 102, 108, 162, 
167, 168, 169, 194, 195, 206, 332, 333, 
334, 338, 342, 345, (life of) 346-368, 
(characterized) 3^7-3^^, 374, 375, 
377, 382, 388, 395, 396, 400, 402, 408, 
413, 414, 415, 421, 485, 514, 515, 544, 
548. 

Vanderbilt, William H., 508, 510 

Venezuela, 541, 542. 

Veto, Presidential, 83, I55, 156, I57, 
165. 

Vice-Presidency, 31, 175, 246, 263, 
356-357, 381, 401. 

Victoria, Queen, 456. 

Virginia, Mother of Presidents, 44, 
390, 422. 

Virginia-Kentucky Resolutions, 249, 
284. 

Waite, Morrison Remick, 508. 



INDEX 



603 



War of 1812, 25, 26, 285 et seq., 295 
et seq., 308 et seq., 326 et seq., 351, 

370, 371, 2,7(), 391, 456. 

War of Independence, 94. See also 
Revolutionary War. 

War Presidents, 166. See also Madi- 
son, Polk, Lincoln, McKinley. 

Washington, City of, 23, 60, 64, 84, 
157, 176, 199 et seq., 203, 261, 262, 
280, 281, 282, 286, 296, 32s, 353, 357, 

371, 389, 394, 398, 399, 414, 429, 448, 
449, 456, 465, 468, 469, 470, 477, 478, 
507, 521 528, S3I. 

Washington, George, 7, 21, 22, 23, 24, 
25, 30, 32, 32, 37, 42, 44, 45, 47, 48, 
49 50, SI, 54, 55, S6, 57, 58, 61, 68, 
69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 91, 94, 95, 99, 
128, 135, 139, 142, 147, 149, 159, 160, 
161, 163, 175, 177, 180, 190, 194, 200, 
204, 205, (life of) 215-240, (charac- 
terized) 226, 241, 244, 245, 247, 248, 
249, 251, 252, 253, 254, 258, 259, 
(characterized) 260, 261, 262, 263, 
270, 271, 283, 285, 289, 290, 291, 292, 
294, 298, 299, 302, 303, 305, (quoted) 
307, 313, 317. 321, 327, 328, 331, 357, 
368, 369, 380, 384, 398. 430, 432, 433, 
446, 501, 533, 558, 568. 



Washington, Martha Dandridge 
(Custis), 37, 204, 220, 221, 239, 263. 

Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 376. 

Webster, Daniel, 65, 106, 107, 108, 
112, 113, 167, 177, 194, 195, 196, 
(quoted) 236, 300, 316, 332, 335, 
356, 358, 361, 364, 3(>^, 3^7, 371, 375, 
376, 389, 394, 397, 400, (character- 
ized) 402, 403, 408, 485, 589. 

Webster, Pelatiah, 25, 278. 

Weed, Thurlow, 351, 363, 390, 427. 

Whigs, 91, loi, 102, 108, III, 112, 113, 
169, 31S, 338, 364, 439, 554- 

Whig party, History of, 105-107. 

Whisky Rebellion, The, 235, 236. 

White House, The, 19 et seq., 157, 
204 et seq., 250, 468. 

White, Edward Douglass, 588. 

Whitman, Walt, (quoted) 472. 

William the Fourth, (quoted) 356. 

Wilmot Proviso, 366, 388, 394, 395, 
403. 

Wives of the Presidents, 36, 220, 243, 
25s, 256, 284, 292, 307, 323, 348, 369, 
373, 377, 378, 381, 391, 400, 404, 406, 
407, 436, 437, 475, 476, 484, 494, 5I3, 
523, 531, 538. 544, 548, 551, 563, 580. 



